Under pressure from Trump, EU proposes going after Chinese companies buying Russian oil

The European Union proposed sanctions against Chinese and other foreign companies buying Russian oil, as part of a package of measures intended to show President Trump the bloc is ramping up economic pressure on Russia and its backers.

“We are now going after those who fuelled Russia’s war by purchasing oil in breach of the sanctions. We [will] target refineries, oil traders, petrochemical companies in third countries, including China,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.

The proposals are the commission’s 19th package of sanctions since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The measures will have to be approved by the bloc’s 27 member states before they can take effect.

“In three years, Russia’s oil revenues in Europe have gone down by 90 per cent. We are now turning that page for good,” von der Leyen said, as she announced a ban on European Union purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas and expanded sanctions against its oil sector.

Last weekend, US President Donald Trump demanded that Nato members put tariffs of between 50 and 100 per cent on Chinese and Indian companies for buying Russian oil.

The European package is not thought to go that far, but is expected to blacklist a substantial number of Chinese entities. Details of the measures will only be released if the bloc signs off on them.

China’s relations with Russia are also thought to have been on the agenda of a call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday. “We propose further measures on Chinese actors supporting Russia’s military industry,” the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said.

“These new sanctions will also squeeze Russia’s access to technologies including AI and geospatial data, as well as critical resources that feed weapons production. This includes those received from foreign suppliers including China and India.”

In closed-door meetings in Brussels in recent weeks, Chinese diplomats were warned by EU officials that more companies would be blacklisted and urged Beijing to intervene to stop the firms from selling European goods to Russian companies banned from buying them.

According to EU sources, China pushed back strongly, denying any active support for Moscow. But it is clear that China has been backing Russia since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Whether the EU will go through with these sanctions, and how much, if any, effect they will have on Russia, remains to be seen. But it is clear that the US can still use its weight to pressure the EU into action.