The India-flagged oil tanker Desh Ujaala is pictured within the Gulf waters close to Al-Basrah Oil Terminal (ABOT), about 50 kilometres offshore of Iraq’s southern Faw peninsula, on August 5, 2025.
Hussein Faleh | AFP | Getty Pictures
U.S. President Donald Trump mentioned Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi advised him New Delhi will cease shopping for oil from Russia, although the transfer will take time.
“[Modi] assured me right this moment that they won’t be shopping for oil from Russia. That is a giant cease.” Trump mentioned on the press briefing within the Oval Workplace. “Now we have to get China to do the identical factor.”
He added that Washington was sad with New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude as a result of it allowed Moscow to proceed waging its “ridiculous struggle” in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the U.S. president additionally mentioned that the halt won’t be fast, and there can be “a bit little bit of a course of,” with out giving a transparent timeline.
CNBC reached out to India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Pure Gasoline for remark, however didn’t obtain a direct reply.
India’s imports of Russian oil have been a sticking level within the relationship between Washington and New Delhi. Trump slapped further tariffs of 25% on India again in August, elevating the full levy to 50%, whereas India has known as out the U.S. for its commerce with Russia.
“If India would not purchase [Russian] oil, it makes [ending the war] a lot simpler,” Trump mentioned. “They assured me inside a brief time frame, they won’t be shopping for oil from Russia, and they’ll return to Russia after the struggle is over.”
On Thursday, Brent crude futures climbed 0.82% to $62.43 a barrel by 10:31 p.m. ET, whereas U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures climbed 0.89% to $58.79.
India is among the largest consumers of Russian oil. Information from analysis agency Kpler reveals Russia exports about 3.35 million barrels of crude per day, with India taking about 1.7 million and China 1.1 million.
New Delhi has defended these purchases, with Power Minister Hardeep Singh Puri telling CNBC in July that New Delhi helped stabilize world power costs and was inspired by the U.S. to take action.
“If folks or nations had stopped shopping for at that stage, the value of oil would have gone as much as 130 {dollars} a barrel. That was a state of affairs wherein we have been suggested, together with by our mates in the USA, to please purchase Russian oil, however inside the value cap,” Puri mentioned.
Russian gross sales of crude oil have been positioned underneath a value cap by the G7 nations and the European Union since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
That value cap, set at $47.6 per barrel, goals to restrict Moscow’s income from oil exports, constricting the nation’s capacity to finance its struggle in Ukraine.
