Russia imposes additional 25% to 40% import duties on US goods

Russia declared on Friday, July 6, 2018, that it would levy additional import duties of 25 to 40 per cent on the US industrial goods, as a retaliatory act against the US tariffs on imported aluminium and steel.

The economy ministry said Russia would impose tariffs on some goods from the United States for which there are Russian-made substitutes. Those goods include fibre optics and equipment of road construction, the oil and gas industries and metal processing and mining.

According to the ministry, these heavy duties are a compensatory measure for US$87.6 million of damage suffered by Russian export companies as a result of the US metal tariffs.

The hike will cost an overall US$537.6 million, said the economy ministry, while adding that Russia may impose more such compensatory measures in the future.

The Russian move came amid what China called the “largest-scale trade war” that saw the United States and China slapping tit-for-tat duties on $34 billion worth of each other’s imports on Friday, July 6.

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska is expected to gain benefits from Russia’s import duties on road building machinery. Deripaska also asked the Russian state to purchase some output from the aluminium company RUSAL in an effort to alleviate pain inflicted by the US sanctions.