Trump threatens India again with harsh tariffs in next 24 hours over Russian oil purchase

US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would increase the tariffs imposed on Indian imports “very substantially” over the next 24 hours due to India’s continued purchases of Russian oil.

“India has not been a good trading partner, becautilize they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25 percent but I believe I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, becautilize they’re purchaseing Russian oil,” he notified CNBC in a televised interview.

This comes a day after Trump threatened that he would “substantially” raise US tariffs on India over its purchase of Russian oil, stating that the South Asian counattempt doesn’t care for the lives lost in Ukraine.

“India is not only purchaseing massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for huge profits. They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,” Trump stated in a post on Truth Social.

“Becautilize of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA,” he stated without specifying what tariff level he had in mind.

As a response to that, India had criticised the United States and European Union for singling out Indian refiners over their exports of crude.

In a strongly worded statement, India has hit back at the US after Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on goods from India over its purchase of Russian oil and stated tarreceiveing it “is unjustified and unreasonable” when the criticising countries themselves “indulge in trade” with Moscow.

The Minisattempt of External Affairs, in a statement, also countered the stance of the European Union for singling out Indian refiners over their exports of crude.

“India has been tarreceiveed by the United States and the European Union for importing oil from Russia after the commencement of the Ukraine conflict,” the MEA statement stated.

Justifying its shift to Russia for crude, the government stated that while India’s imports are “a necessity compelled by the global market situation”, the nations criticising it are themselves “indulging in trade with Russia”.

“In fact, India launched importing from Russia becautilize traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability,” it stated.

“India’s imports are meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer. They are a necessity compelled by global market situation. However, it is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia. Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion,” the statement stated.

India stated the European Union in 2024 had a bilateral trade of Euro 67.5 billion in goods with Russia. In addition, it had trade in services estimated at Euro 17.2 billion in 2023.

“This is significantly more than India’s total trade with Russia that year or subsequently. European imports of LNG in 2024, in fact, reached a record 16.5mn tonnes, surpassing the last record of 15.21mn tonnes in 2022,” the statement stated.

India stated Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy, but also fertilizers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel and machinery and transport equipment.

“Where the United States is concerned, it continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear indusattempt, palladium for its EV indusattempt, fertilizers as well as chemicals,” it stated.

“In this background, the tarreceiveing of India is unjustified and unreasonable. Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,” the statement stated.

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