The US previously announced secondary tariffs against Indian goods eventually came into effect on 27 August 2025.
These tariffs fall within the general tariff-driven approach of the US Administration to its trading partners (see, e.g., the EOs introducing tariffs against China here, here, and here, as well as a “Liberation Day Order” imposing tariffs against other jurisdictions).
Nevertheless, these additional tariffs against India have also a distinctive feature. It makes them of interest for sanctions partitioners – the tariffs announced purpose is to advance the US sanctions against Russia. Accordingly, they are of interest as an example of “secondary” sanctions imposed against a third-party state with no apparent involvement. They also raise interesting discrete legal issues of the validity of such actions of the US President as well as their overall consistency with what is known as “Oil Price Cap” targeted economic sanctions against trade in Russian crude and oil products which we previously discussed in an earlier video.
Accordingly, we also issued today a video analysing these US tariffs from the sanctions perspective.