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President Trump took European leaders to task Thursday for their nations’ purchases of Russian oil, opening a new battlefront in the so-called economic war he’s waging on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.
The European leaders had gathered in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss security guarantees from NATO countries if a peace deal can be achieved. Mr. Trump joined the meeting via a video call from the White House.
Mr. Trump urged the U.S. allies to stop buying Russian oil and also to put pressure on China, which has emerged as one of the largest purchasers of fossil fuels from Moscow.
After the Paris summit concluded, Mr. Zelenskyy told reporters that Mr. Trump voiced his frustration with the European leaders.
“President Trump is very dissatisfied that Russia’s oil is being purchased by Europe. Among others, there are two countries, we know that these are Hungary and Slovakia,” he said.
Later, on X, Mr. Zelenskyy wrote, “The key to peace is depriving Russia’s war machine of money, depriving it of resources.”
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European nations purchased $25.5 billion worth of Russian oil and natural gas last year, helping finance Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine even as European leaders condemn the war and impose sanctions.
In fact, European leaders collectively spent more money on importing Russian oil last year than they did on financial aid for Ukraine, which totals roughly $21.7 billion, according to data from the Center for Research Energy and Clean Air.
The call for Europe to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels is the second phase of Mr. Trump’s economic war. He’s targeting countries that buy Russian goods and oil in an effort to force Mr. Putin into peace talks.
The president didn’t comment on camera Thursday about the conference call. But among his social media posts were photographs of himself and Mr. Putin looking up at an overflight of U.S. warplanes during their summit in Alaska last month, plus a headline touting U.S. domestic oil production setting a new record this summer.
Mr. Trump opened up the first salvo in his economic war last week, imposing a 50% tariff on most U.S. imports from India, making good on his threat to punish India over its purchases of Russian oil.
India was a nominal buyer of Russian oil before the war in Ukraine began in February 2022. Moscow has since become India’s top oil supplier. That’s because the Group of Seven nations representing the world’s top economies capped Russian oil exports at $60 per barrel in December 2022.
Mr. Trump has become increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress on a peace deal, even ramping up his criticism of Mr. Putin. He has threatened “severe consequences” for Moscow if it doesn’t move to end the war.
However, administration officials say Mr. Trump is concerned that a direct move against Russia could derail peace talks. Instead, the president is aiming to punish countries that purchase Russian oil as a way to cut off its economy at the knees.
When asked on Wednesday why he’s not taking direct action against Russia, Mr. Trump blew up at a reporter, insisting that he’s already done so by penalizing its trade partners.
“Two weeks ago, I said, ‘If India buys [Russian oil], India’s got big problems, and that’s what happened, so don’t tell me about that,” Mr. Trump said. “Would you say that putting secondary sanctions on India outside of China [would hurt Russia]? They’re almost equal.”
The European Union imposed a ban on most oil imports from Russia in 2022 over its invasion of Ukraine. However, it made an exception for imports to Slovakia and Hungary to give the landlocked European central European countries time to find alternative oil supplies.
Despite a range of sanctions and the threat posed by reliance on Russian energy, the European Union’s imports of Russian energy have declined only slightly in the third year of the Ukrainian war.
The EU, which has partnered with the U.S. to impose severe sanctions on Moscow, still imported $41.9 billion in goods from Russia last year, according to data from the bloc’s statistics agency, Eurostat.
The European Commission has proposed legislation to phase out EU imports of Russian oil and gas by Jan. 1, 2028, but severing its decades-old energy ties with Moscow has proven tricky.
Russia was the largest supplier of petroleum to the European Union before the war began. Europe has eased off Russian oil since Mr. Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, but Europe still imports billions of dollars in oil products from Russia.
Russian oil imports to Europe totaled $1.72 billion in the first quarter of 2025, which is a dramatic drop from $16.4 billion during the first quarter of 2021, according to Eurostat data.
Europe has slightly reduced its dependence on natural gas imports from Russia. In the first quarter of 2025, Russia accounted for about 19% of natural gas imported by Europe, down from 22% in 2021. In fact, the value of Russian gas exports has increased over the past four years because of price increases, reaching $5.24 billion in this year’s first quarter.
Iron, steel and fertilizer are among the other products Russia exports to the European Union. Overall trade between Russia and the EU has dropped by 86% between the first quarter of 2022 and 2025, Eurostat data showed.
At the end of Thursday’s conference, French President Emmanuel Macron, who gathered the so-called Coalition of the Willing, said the leaders “made real progress in Paris.” However, he did not detail what had been hammered out during the summit.
Mr. Macron did say that some of the nations had agreed to deploy troops “by land, sea or air” to Ukraine the day after a ceasefire is reached, according to the BBC. Mr. Putin has repeatedly pushed back against a European-backed security agreement in postwar Ukraine.
The Paris meeting came just one day after Mr. Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Beijing for a military parade marking the end of World War II. Both China and North Korea have supported Mr. Putin and his war in Ukraine.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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