Navarro Accuses India of Fueling Moscow, Rubio Opposes Sanctions on China Over Refined Russian Oil
New Delhi: White House trade adviser Peter Navarro accused India of bankrolling Vladimir Putin’s war by turning cheap Russian crude into a refining windfall, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned that Europe itself is still buying Russian oil processed in China and warned against the fallout of secondary sanctions.
"If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the US, it needs to start acting like one," Navarro wrote in an op-ed in Financial Times on Monday.
Navarro's article comes as worries mount in India as the day nears when US president Donald Trump's additional 25% tariff on Indian goods is going to come into effect. Trump had imposed this penalty on the original 25% tariff imposition, citing New Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil, taking the total percentage of tariffs to 50%.
It also comes as India has welcomed the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage on August 15, which it was closely watching for signs of whether there might be relief for it. The Wire has noted how New Delhi’s response can be read as relief that the focus on dialogue creates a potential opening for India – squeezed between its strategic partnership with Washington and its heavy reliance on Russian energy.
Reuters reports based on sources' inputs, meanwhile, that a planned visit by US trade negotiators to New Delhi from August 25-29 has been called off.
Navarro, a key Trump aide, placed the blame on India's oil refining companies:
"Importantly, before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russian oil made up less than 1 per cent of India’s crude imports. Since then, daily imports have soared to more than 1.5mn barrels — more than 30 per cent of India’s total.
"To be clear, this surge has not been driven by domestic oil consumption needs. Rather, what really drives this trade is profiteering by India’s Big Oil lobby. Refining companies have turned India into a massive refining hub for discounted Russian crude."
Navarro has emerged the economic voice who can complement Trump and his administration’s plans.
Noting in his op-ed that the proceeds form India's purchase of Russian oil flow to India’s "politically connected energy titans, and in turn, into Vladimir Putin’s war chest," Navarro calls India’s dependence on Russian crude "opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world’s efforts to isolate Putin’s war economy."
Since the Ukraine war began, India has ramped up purchases of discounted Russian crude, refining much of it for re-export, with Europe becoming a key market. The European think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates that Western nations and European countries imported 18 billion euros worth of oil products from six Indian refineries and one in Turkey, about 9 billion euros of which was refined from Russian crude between March 2024 to February 2025.
Beijing remains the top buyer of Russian oil, with India in second place, but China has not attracted any secondary sanctions.
This comes even as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview to Fox Business on Sunday that Europe continues to buy refined Russian oil from China, but didn’t mention India.
Asked about the possibility of sanctions on Europe, he replied: “Well, I don’t know about on Europe directly, obviously, but certainly there are implications to secondary sanctions. If you put secondary sanctions on a country – let’s say you were to go after the oil sales of Russian oil to China. Well, China just refines that oil. That oil is then sold into the global marketplace, and anyone who’s buying that oil would be paying more for it or, if it doesn’t exist, would have to find an alternative source for it.”
He added that European capitals have privately voiced “concern” about proposals for 100% tariffs on China and India.
While Rubio used China’s refining of Russian oil for Europe as an argument against secondary sanctions, Navarro accused India of the same practice, saying it was helping to bankroll Moscow’s war.
In the FT op-ed, Navarro claimed that while the Biden administration "largely looked the other way at this strategic and geopolitical madness," the Trump administration is "confronting it."
The adviser also said how India's demand for transfer of US military capabilities to itself is under a cloud now as New Delhi was "now cozying up to both Russia and China."
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