US President Donald Trump has said NATO countries should stop buying Russian oil if they want Washington to tighten sanctions on Moscow -- but achieving this could be time consuming and challenging.
Only three NATO nations currently import Russian crude: Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey. Of the three, Turkey is the big one.
"According to our data, (Turkey) is the third largest Russian oil importer globally," Petras Kanitas, a Vilnius-based analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told RFE/RL on September 15.
"Turkey buys Russian oil mainly because it's heavily discounted," he added. "They also benefit by refining Russian crude oil and selling fuel products to Europe."
Trump has for some time spoken of secondary tariffsagainst countries that import Russian oil and has already announced them on India. In a September 13 Truth Socialpost, he called on "all NATO nations" to stop such imports.
"Trump's threats so far have largely been directed at India and to an extent China. Turkey was never kind of in the mix. So, this is an interesting new development," said Benjamin Hilgenstock, senior economist at the Kyiv-based KSE Institute, a think tank.
The idea is to hit the Russian economy by cutting off one of its key exports, forcing the Kremlin into substantial negotiations on ending the full-scale war it launched against Ukraine in 2022.
Hilgenstock, who is also an Associate Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said losing Turkish exports would be a big problem for Moscow.
"It would probably mean that they have to give higher discounts to other buyers in order to redirect this volume," he told RFE/RL.
But Turkey's appetite for Russian oil is based on powerful economic forces that Ankara will not easily ignore. Some of its refineries take 90 percent of their crude from Russia; switching could not happen overnight. Turkey is also, unlike India and China, a big importer of refined Russian oil products.
"Of course, for Turkey, [ending imports] will be somewhat of a challenge, as it would be for Hungary and the Slovak Republic, which have taken no steps whatsoever to diversify their supplies," said Hilgenstock.
Economics aside, the politics would also make it more complicated to push Turkey into cutting Russian supplies. Since it's not a member of the European Union, it does not face the same pressures as Hungary or Slovakia.
Hungary And Slovakia
Both Budapest and Bratislava have repeatedly said they are dependent on Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline.
In August, when Ukrainian air strikes repeatedly put it out of action, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijarto said "if deliveries via the Druzhba pipeline become impossible for a long time, then the oil supply to Hungary and Slovakia will also become impossible."
Yet the EU has set a goal of ridding itself of Russian energy imports by 2027 using EU internal market rules, meaning the decision could not be vetoed by Hungary or Slovakia.
Analysts say both countries could import oil via the Adria pipeline, through Croatia, instead.
"Diversification is not an insoluble technical problem but a matter of political and economic will," Tamas Pletser, an oil and gas analyst at Erste Bank, told RFE/RL's Hungarian Serviceearlier this month.
"This would make fuel more expensive, but as long as there is a free market there is no shortage," he added.
CREA energy analyst Kanitas pointed out that earlier this year, the Czech Republic succeeded in fully divesting itself of Russian oil supplies -- a move it committed to shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
"They kept their promise," he said, but added that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban "has good relations with President Trump. I would say there might be some sort of waiver or something."
Secondary Tariffs
Trump's post also called on NATO countries to consider 50-100 percent tariffs on China to punish it for its support of Russia's war machine.
The call comes as Washington is itself engaged in a tense trade standoff with China. Trump has repeatedly pushed back his own deadline for China to accept new trade terms or face massive new tariffs -- as China has shown no willingness to back down.
Trump's statement was backed by Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, who has pushed legislation for massive secondary tariffs to choke Russia's trading partners.
"It is now time for the Europeans to follow President Trump's lead and go after China and India," he told NBC's Meet The Press program. "China and India will change their practices toward Putin. This war will end."
But since Europe has accepted steep tariff increases as the price for doing business with Washington, it has all the more need to keep trade rolling with China.
On September 15, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing warned of "firm countermeasures" if NATO countries "hit China with tariffs."
No European leaders have suggested a tariff hike is on the cards. Nor was there any immediate sign of movement on cutting oil imports.
Hilgenstock said that for there to be any, Trump might need to intervene personally with the leaders of Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey.
"This is really a conversation that Mr. Trump has to have with his friends (Viktor) Orban, (Robert) Fico, and (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan."
