Hours After Modi's Upbeat Remarks, US Adviser Lambasts Delhi, India Lobbyist Posts Photo-op With Trump

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upbeat social media post on US President Donald Trump's remarks was quickly followed by a sharp broadside from White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and an Oval Office photo-op from Jason Miller, the Trump loyalist whose firm lobbies for India in Washington.

Navarro early on Sunday (September 7) derided as “crap” a community note on X – which deemed his criticism of New Delhi's purchases of Russian oil as a ‘double standard’ – and said it was an example of the Modi government's “spin machine moving high tilt”, continuing his attack on India's import of the sanctioned crude.

Meanwhile Miller, hired earlier this year by India to press its case in Washington, posted pictures with Trump and called their discussion the meeting that “topped off” his “fantastic week” in the capital – implicitly linking himself to the same presidential comments that Modi had showcased.

The flurry came at the end of a fraught week: on September 1, Modi was photographed with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit; on September 5, Trump declared that India and Russia were “lost to China” and later said that while Modi was a “good friend”, he “just [doesn't] like” what the prime minister is “doing at this particular moment”.

Modi’s Saturday post highlighted only the favourable line, while Trump has not responded since. Navarro’s broadside and Miller’s photo-op both landed hours later.

Indian government must ‘stop killing Ukrainians’ and ‘taking American jobs’: Navarro

Navarro's remarks came following his response to a Washington Post report which cited sources as attributing US officials' “inflammatory language toward New Delhi” as “complicating efforts to repair ties” that have been hit by the Trump administration's 50% tariff on Indian goods, half of which is a penalty for the Modi government's purchases of crude oil from Russia.

The newspaper had also quoted an American official as calling Navarro's barrage of criticism against Indian imports of Russian oil as “unhelpful” and recalled the then-US treasury secretary Janet Yellen as affirming New Delhi's purchases of the crude in November 2022.

While Navarro responded by maintaining that India is only ‘profiteering’ and not meeting its energy needs by buying Russian oil sanctioned due to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, a community note on X – which are written by volunteers on the platform – said that the adviser's view is a ‘double standard’ in light of US imports uranium and fertilisers from Russia.

However, Navarro a day later lambasted the note and claimed it was an example of Indian government propaganda.

“That crap note below is just that. Crap. India buys Russia oil solely to profiteer. It didn't buy any before Russia invaded Ukraine. Indian govt spin machine moving high tilt [sic],” he wrote on Sunday before calling on New Delhi to “stop killing [Ukrainians]” and “stop taking American jobs”.

Over the last month Navarro has emerged as a particularly sharp critic of New Delhi's oil imports within the White House, saying over a number of occasions that they have turned the country into a “laundromat” for the Kremlin, benefit India's “politically connected energy titans” and fuel Russia's war against Ukraine, which he went to the extent of calling “Modi's war”.

The Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday that it “obviously reject[s]” Navarro's “inaccurate and misleading statements”.

Miller's firm assisting New Delhi with ‘strategic counsel, government relations assistance’

A few hours before Navarro's latest remarks, Miller on X posted a photo of himself with Trump in the Oval Office and said that his meeting with the president capped off a “fantastic week in Washington”, where he noted that his “friends” Eduardo Bolsonaro – son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage were among those also present.

Having been associated with Trump's presidential campaigns in 2016, 2020 and 2024 – after the latter of which he served in the president's transition team – Miller's firm SHW Partners was hired by the Modi government earlier this year to lobby on its behalf in Washington.

Promised a monthly fee of $150,000 and quarterly advances of $450,000, SHW in a US government filing disclosed that it agreed to provide New Delhi with services including “strategic counsel, tactical planning and government relations assistance on policy matters” before the White House and Capitol Hill among other parties.

His announcement of having met Trump – as did Navarro's post – came on the back of the president telling reporters on Friday that while he would “always be friends” with Modi and that India and the US “have a special relationship”, he “just [doesn't] like what he [Modi]'s doing at this particular moment”.

Modi replied by saying that he ‘deeply appreciated and fully reciprocated’ the president's “sentiments and positive assessment of our ties”, although he did so in response to a post by a news agency that left out Trump's professed unhappiness with India's Russian oil purchases.

Trump's remarks also came hours after he said that the US had “lost” India to “deepest, darkest China”, where Modi had travelled to earlier this week for the SCO summit in Tianjin and was photographed smiling and speaking with Putin and Xi.

However, Modi in a move that sources say is a balancing act has decided to skip a virtual meeting of BRICS leaders organised by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva scheduled for Monday, in which the latter reportedly plans to discuss Trump's tariff policy as well as multilateralism among emerging market economies.

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