Summary
Russia was excluded from Trump’s sweeping tariff list due to existing U.S. sanctions that limit trade, White House officials claimed.
Despite lower trade volumes, countries like Syria were still included, prompting skepticism.
Trump has prioritized ending the war in Ukraine and threatened 50% tariffs on nations buying Russian oil. Russian state media framed the omission as sanctions-based, not favoritism, with some mocking Trump’s harsher stance on allies.
Ukraine, meanwhile, faces a 10% tariff despite the country’s strategic partnership with the U.S.
Iran and Syria were included.
And so were uninhabited islands. I’m not saying these people are geniuses. I’m saying that Grok probably said to skip sanctioned countries and they got that mostly right.
Or, much more simply, Trump didn’t want to make Putin mad.
So then why did Somalia or Burkina Faso not make the list? Does Putin care about them? Not really.
Occam’s razor here is pretty easy to see as “Sanctioned counties, and we missed two.”
That wasn’t a comprehensive list, just 2 off the jump.
So no, the simpler answer is that sanctions simply aren’t a factor. They didn’t list every country on the planet.
Sure, whatever you need to believe with no evidence to support it. At least a 80% correlation with the sanctions list mes a touch of sense.
Claiming that Trump is constantly kissing Putin’s ass isn’t a conspiracy. It’s not even a secret…
So where’s your evidence that the list of countries was generated by AI?