A practice transports oil tankers in Ajmer on July 7, 2025. Indian exporters are scrambling for choices as they search to mitigate the fallout of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened tariff salvo towards the world’s most populous nation.
Himanshu Sharma | Afp | Getty Photographs
U.S. President Donald Trump’s commerce advisor Peter Navarro on Monday known as on India to cease shopping for Russian crude oil, accusing the Asian big of undermining worldwide efforts to isolate Vladimir Putin’s conflict financial system.
Writing in within the Monetary Occasions, Navarro described India’s dependence on Russian oil as “opportunistic,” including that if India “needs to be handled as a strategic associate of the US, it wants to begin performing like one.”
“In impact, India acts as a world clearinghouse for Russian oil, changing embargoed crude into high-value exports whereas giving Moscow the {dollars} it wants,” Navarro mentioned within the op-ed.
His feedback come shortly after commerce negotiations between the U.S. and India, which had been scheduled to happen in New Delhi later this month, have been reportedly known as off.
India’s Ministry of Commerce and Trade, and the Workplace of the usTrade Consultant didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for feedback.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration mentioned it deliberate to impose an extra 25% tariff on India over Russian oil purchases, bringing the full levies towards the nation to 50%. The cumulative price of duties on India is among the many highest on any of Washington’s commerce companions.
India described the transfer as “extraordinarily unlucky” on the time, saying the tariffs have been “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable.”
The White Home has since warned that secondary levies on India may improve additional, relying on the result of Trump’s peace talks with Putin.
For its half, India has mentioned it has been unfairly focused for its persevering with commerce with Russia since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, amid criticism from each the U.S. and European Union.
In a assertion printed Aug. 4, India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs mentioned the nation started importing from Russian as a result of conventional provides have been diverted from Europe after the outbreak of the battle.
“India’s imports are supposed to guarantee predictable and reasonably priced vitality prices to the Indian client. They’re a necessity compelled by international market state of affairs,” India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs mentioned.
“Nonetheless, it’s revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in commerce with Russia. Not like our case, such commerce is just not even an important nationwide compulsion,” it added.
Trump’s criticism of India’s oil commerce with Russia represents a transparent shift from the Biden administration, which, together with different G7 nations, Australia and the European Union, established a $60 a barrel worth cap in late 2022. The EU has since signaled it has reached an settlement to decrease the value threshold.
This mechanism sought to restrict Russia’s income from oil gross sales, whereas sustaining some stability in international vitality markets.
Shilan Shah, deputy chief rising markets economist at Capital Economics, mentioned India may, in precept, discover suppliers apart from Russia to satisfy its vitality wants “comparatively simply,” with restricted financial influence.
“However we doubt that India would make a wholehearted effort to wean itself off Russian oil. Domestically, it will not play properly to be seen caving to Trump’s calls for,” Shah mentioned in a observe printed Aug. 4.
“As well as, Indian policymakers could be reluctant to upend usually cordial (and long-standing) relations with Russia,” he added.
— CNBC’s Vinay Dwivedi contributed to this report.
