By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Most Americans support a bid to sanction Russia’s trading partners as a way to put pressure on Moscow to end its war with Ukraine, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The three-day poll, which concluded on Sunday, showed 62% of respondents back sanctioning Russia’s trading partners, a strategy that U.S. President Donald Trump has partially embraced and has threatened to expand to include China.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. More than 1 million people have been killed or wounded on both sides, including thousands of mostly Ukrainian civilians, according to analysts.
Trump has in recent weeks engaged in intense diplomacy, meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska but so far failing to stop the conflict, a goal he had pledged to accomplish on his first day in office.
Trump, who has reportedly said he would like to win a Nobel Peace Prize, already has imposed secondary sanctions, in the form of a 25% tariff, against India for continuing to buy Russian oil – the Kremlin’s main source of financing for its war on Ukraine, in his effort to end the fighting.
The U.S. president has threatened to impose steep levies on China, the largest purchaser of Russian oil, Turkey, the UAE and other countries that trade with Russia, to intensify pressure on Moscow to agree to a ceasefire.
Some 76% of Trump’s Republicans in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they support sanctions on Russian trade partners as a way to stop the war, as did a modest majority – 58% – of Democrats.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll gathered responses from 1,022 U.S. adults nationwide and had a 3 percentage point margin of error for all respondents. Its margin of error for Republicans and Democrats was 6 points.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay; editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
