India’s 50% tariff is actually a US sanction in disguise. Why that makes it worse

The goal of the punitive tax is to get Putin to end the Ukraine war. If that objective is not realized, there’s no guarantee of what Trump might do next to India, one of the world’s biggest buyer of seaborne Russian crude

Washington has taken its brinksmanship against New Delhi to a dangerous level. Doubling an already-high tariff of 25% is bad enough. What makes it worse for Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the language. US President Donald Trump has decided to call India’s additional punishment for importing Russian oil a “secondary” tariff, a made-up term that has a close cousin in the world of sanctions.
Secondary sanctions impose a cost on third parties for allegedly enabling bad behaviour by someone else. If a US bank, port, ship, or company is prohibited from engaging in a transaction involving the Russian financial system, then a secondary sanction can make it potentially illegal for non-Americans, too.