Opinion | How to Punish Russia, Make Money for America and End the War in Ukraine

Even though Russia and Ukraine were engaged in cease-fire talks with American representatives in Saudi Arabia, apparently with some progress on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has shown little actual commitment to ending his war.President Trump needs some better cards.Several weeks ago, the president floated the idea of sanctions and tariffs over Russian imports.But the Kremlin has been dismissive — mainly because the United States imports very little from Russia.

Extensive financial and trade sanctions have been in place, most of them for around three years, and they are plainly not enough to bring peace.Fortunately, there is a simple way to improve the American hand.The administration should impose sanctions on any company or individual — in any country — involved in a Russian oil and gas sale.

Russia could avoid these so-called secondary sanctions by paying a per shipment fee to the United States Treasury.The payment would be called a Russian Universal Tariff, and it would start low but increase every week that passes without a peace deal.Ships carry most Russian oil and gas to world markets.

The secondary sanctions — if Russia does not make the required payments — would fall on all parties to the transaction, including the oil tanker owner, the insurer and the purchaser.Recent evidence confirms that Indian and Chinese entities — whose nations import considerable oil from Russia, and have not imposed their own penalties on the Russian economy over the war in Ukraine — do not want to be caught up in American sanctions, making this idea workable.

Another factor in its favor: All such tanker traffic is tracked carefully by commercial parties and by U.S.authorities.Secondary sanctions are powerful tools: violators can be cut off from the U.S.

financial system, and they apply even to transactions that don’t directly involve American companies.They have been used to limit Iranian oil exports and to require that payments for Iranian oil...