While U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on allies and foes including Europe, India, Japan and China, some of the world's most heavily sanctioned countries - Russia, Belarus, Cuba and North Korea - avoided being singled out for special punitive treatment.

Russia and North Korea were excluded from Trump's tariff list as neither country engages in meaningful trade relations with the United States.

The White House did not include adversarial nations like Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Belarus in the new “Liberation Day” tariffs, a decision which Trump administration officials defended. An unnamed White House official told The Hill on Thursday that those nations “are not subject to the Reciprocal Tariff Executive Order because they are already facing extremely high tariffs,