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.

Russia must take extra measures to minimise the negative impact on its economy from global market turbulence due to tariffs imposed this week by U.S. President Donald Trump, the Kremlin said on Friday.

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.

President Trump's sweeping new set of tariffs impact friends and foe alike, but also on the list are uninhabited islands while glaring omissions include Russia and Iran.

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