{"id":1544204,"date":"2025-06-28T03:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T07:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1544204"},"modified":"2025-06-28T03:25:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T07:25:00","slug":"us-reluctant-to-drop-its-economic-bunker-buster-on-china-india-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/us-reluctant-to-drop-its-economic-bunker-buster-on-china-india-russia\/1544204\/","title":{"rendered":"US Reluctant To Drop Its “Economic Bunker Buster” On China, India, & Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

US Reluctant To Drop Its “Economic Bunker Buster” On China, India, & Russia<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s unrealistic to expect the US to maintain 500% tariffs on China and India for their purchase of Russian oil, which would also ruin its trade talks with them and derail the Ukrainian peace process…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Senator Lindsey Graham\u00a0recently said<\/a>\u00a0that his bill to impose 500% tariffs on every country that imports Russian resources is \u201can economic bunker buster against China, India, and Russia\u201d,<\/strong> yet for all his tough talk, the US is still reluctant to drop it. The\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0reported that the Trump Administration is \u201cquietly pressuring\u201d the Senate to water down the legislation by \u201cturn[ing] the word \u2018shall\u2019 into \u2018may\u2019 wherever it appears in the bill\u2019s text, removing the mandatory nature of the prescribed reprimands\u201d.<\/p>\n

Their report was lent credence by Graham himself\u00a0proposing an exemption<\/a>\u00a0for countries that aid Ukraine, thus averting an unprecedented US-EU trade war in the event that his bill passes into law. Trump\u2019s remark to\u00a0Politico<\/a>\u00a0in mid-June about how \u201csanctions cost us a lot of money\u201d suggests that he\u2019s not interested in going this route, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u00a0later telling them<\/a>\u00a0that sanctions could derail the Ukrainian peace process, though he also didn\u2019t rule them out in the future.<\/p>\n

These are sensible explanations for the US\u2019 reluctance to drop its \u201ceconomic bunker buster\u201d on Russia but they don\u2019t account for its reluctance to drop it on China and India,<\/strong> which have served as invaluable valves for Russia from the West\u2019s sanctions pressure due to their large-scale import of its oil. Graham expects that they\u2019ll cut off their purchases if the US threatens them with 500% tariffs but they\u2019re unlikely to comply since they know that the US would also harm its own economy through these means.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but the trade deal that US and China recently agreed to would be jeopardized, as would the ongoing talks with India over a similar such agreement. Trump is pleased with both and doesn\u2019t want to rock the boat right now. While he might revert back to his previous tariff pressure if things don\u2019t go his way, he could just unilaterally impose more tariffs against either in that scenario, and they probably wouldn\u2019t be anywhere near the counterproductive level that Graham\u2019s legislation demands.<\/p>\n

Seeing as how \u201cThe US Is Once Again Trying To Subordinate India<\/a>\u201d, which is part of his administration\u2019s efforts to\u00a0reshape South Asian geopolitics<\/a>, he\u2019s more prone to imposing higher tariffs against it instead of China but it\u2019s premature to predict that he ultimately will. In any case, the pretext probably wouldn\u2019t be energy-related given that he just\u00a0surprisingly posted<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cChina can continue to purchase Oil from Iran\u201d in spite of early February\u2019s\u00a0Executive Order<\/a>\u00a0that explicitly aims to \u201cdrive Iran\u2019s export of oil to zero\u201d.<\/p>\n

It would therefore be utterly bizarre for Trump to impose tariffs of any level on India or whoever else for purchasing Russian resources when he now no longer cares about the US\u2019 systemic rival China purchasing oil from none other than Iran, which he\u00a0just bombed<\/a>, in defiance of his own decree. <\/strong>The aforementioned calculations make it very unlikely that Trump will drop Graham\u2019s \u201cbunker buster\u201d on either of those two. If his bill enters into law, a loophole would likely be found to avoid complying with it.<\/p>\n

This prediction brings the analysis back around to the future of Graham\u2019s \u201ceconomic bunker buster\u201d. Quite clearly, the Trump Administration doesn\u2019t want him to move it through Congress so he might respect their wishes, thus leading to his bill becoming nothing but bluster. This is especially so if his team signals that it\u2019s already found a loophole to get around it unless he changes the language as reportedly requested. China, India, and Russia therefore almost certainly have nothing to worry about.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 06\/27\/2025 – 23:25<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/us-reluctant-drop-its-economic-bunker-buster-china-india-russia<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Reluctant To Drop Its “Economic Bunker Buster” On China, India, & Russia Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, It\u2019s unrealistic to expect the US…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1544205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1544204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1544204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1544205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1544204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1544204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1544204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}