OPINION:
When ruling on the president’s power to impose tariffs, the Supreme Court will have to face the fact that President Trump has turned tariffs into a major element of foreign policy.
The latest example is Mr. Trump’s proposed deal with India, which would lower mutual tariffs and end Indian imports of Russian oil.
Because India is one of the major customers for Russian oil, the deal could have a significant effect on Russian President Putin’s ability to finance his war on Ukraine.
Mr. Trump wants the Ukraine war to end before midyear. Mr. Putin has no deadline in mind.
Announced Monday, Mr. Trump’s proposed deal with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will reduce U.S. tariffs on India’s goods from 50% to 18%, in exchange for which the U.S. and India will lower trade barriers and India will no longer purchase Russian oil.
Indian oil traders have already begun seeking other suppliers for April shipments.
To determine how that cutoff of Russian oil will affect the Russian economy, one need only consider how much Russian oil India has been buying. In January, India was buying about 1.2 million barrels per day, down from a high in May.
At the current price of $54 per barrel, and assuming a cost of production at one-third that price, Mr. Putin will have about $1.3 billion less per month to spend fighting Ukraine.
That won’t end Russia’s war, but it will make it harder to sustain.
India, like Iran, has depended on Russian oil tankers and those of the “ghost fleet” to import Russian oil. The ghost fleet of 700 to 1,500 ships has been under enormous pressure from the U.S. Navy and other nations’ navies. (Even the French seized a tanker carrying Russian oil on Jan. 22. It is now reportedly in Marseille, France, under guard.)
The ghost fleet has been using many tricks to get Russian and Iranian oil to its customers. They have been flying false flags, turning off the internationally required radar and radios and rendezvousing with other ships to transfer cargo, but they are facing new challenges — and not just because some of the ships are being seized.
The new challenges are mostly because of U.S. secondary sanctions, which are deterring buyers. The ships are being hunted by our NATO allies and are, in the case of Russian oil tankers, subject to Ukrainian attacks.
There are other costs Mr. Putin has thus far been willing to endure. As reported by this newspaper, a paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies finds that Russia suffered about 1.2 million casualties, including up to 350,000 troop deaths, from February 2022 (when the war began) to December 2025.
The CSIS report said Ukraine suffered 500,000 to 600,000 casualties, including about 140,000 deaths. Those numbers cannot be sustained by Ukraine, which, to state the obvious, has a far smaller population than Russia.
Russian troops are assisted by North Korean troops, who have been in Ukraine since 2024. When they arrived, they were no more than cannon fodder. Now, the Norks are reportedly taking over some of Russia’s drone and mine-clearing operations.
Mr. Trump’s deal with India, if it becomes a reality, will hurt Mr. Putin, but not enough to stop the war. The European Union has continued to purchase Russian natural gas, amounting to about 7.2 billion euros in 2025, which is about $8.6 billion at current exchange rates.
France, Belgium, Hungary and Slovakia are the major purchasers. The EU is the largest buyer of Russian gas. It is committed to ending those purchases by 2027, five years from the start of the war, but it might not do it even then.
Recalcitrant allies are not the only problem Mr. Trump has in attempting to stop the Russian war on Ukraine. Mr. Putin is the biggest problem. He has no desire to end the war. If Mr. Trump wants to stop the war, he has to overcome Mr. Putin’s reluctance to do so. Can he do so by strangling the Russian economy? Not without Europe’s help.
We are now about two weeks away from this war entering its fifth year. Peace is just as distant as it was four years ago.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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