When President Donald Trump unveiled tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories early this month, there was one place that was conspicuously left off the list: Russia.

Initially, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios that Russia had been excluded because US sanctions already “preclude any meaningful trade.” But this doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Though the US trades very little with Russia these days, the US slapped a broad 10 percent tariff on most other places — tariffs that are still in force despite a reversal on plans to target different countries with different tariff rates — it doesn’t trade much with, including some uninhabited islands.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reiterated that it was because the US doesn’t trade with Russia due to sanctions on that country. (Again, a claim that’s

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