The absence of Russia on the president’s new list of countries that he’ll hit with steep tariffs did not go unnoticed on social media. Critics were quick to accuse Trump of kowtowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has for years expressed his admiration of.

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,