The Trump administration says sanctions imposed on Moscow mean the U.S. does little trade with Russia, but questions persist about the motivations.

Aside from climate change and pollution, penguins are now facing one more threat from humanity: President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

One country that did not feature on Donald Trump's list of tariffs on US trade partners was Russia. US outlet Axios quoted White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as saying this was because existing US sanctions on Russia "preclude any meaningful trade" and noting that Cuba,

Russia was notably absent from the sweeping tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday, which are set to affect almost the entire world. The White House said sanctions imposed on Moscow because of Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had already ensured that there was no meaningful trade between the countries.

Trump promised tariffs that would mirror what other nations assess. In fact, the calculation is quite different.

That changed Wednesday afternoon when Trump introduced his tariff charts outlining a roughly 10 percent across-the-board tax on imports from most countries, with the numbers stretching up to 50 percent.

"We have to hit Republican states and we have to hit Donald Trump's friends," a top European official told his colleagues.

The US will know “soon enough” if Putin is “serious about peace”, Marco Rubio said, as Nato leaders call for Moscow to be given a deadline to accept a ceasefire deal.The US secretary of state told Nato allies that Donald Trump will be able to see Russia’s true intentions in a matter of weeks,