Russia says rising tariffs threaten US and global economy

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that rising trade tariffs carried risks for the economy of the United States and the whole world.

Zakharova was commenting on U.S. trade policy under President Donald Trump, who has aggressively raised tariffs on countries exporting to the U.S.

Trump last week also threatened heavy new sanctions against Russia and countries that buy its exports unless Moscow agrees to a Ukraine peace deal by early September.

Zakharova told a press briefing that U.S. actions could lead to a "fragmentation of the world economy", and the U.S. had become a source of additional instability in world trade.

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov, Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)