Vance Says Secondary Tariffs on India Meant to Pressure Moscow; Indian Envoy Reaffirms Delhi’s Trade Autonomy
New Delhi: US Vice President J.D. Vance on Sunday said that the secondary tariffs against India over its purchase of Russian oil were part of President Donald Trump’s “aggressive economic leverage” to stop the Russia-Ukraine war.
Vance’s statement comes days before the additional 25% tariffs levied on India are set to kick in, taking the total duties on exports to the US to 50%.
During an interview with American broadcaster NBC News, Vance said that the secondary tariffs against India were an example of US President Donald Trump trying to thwart Russia’s oil economy.
Vance made the statement while answering a question on the steps taken by the US government to mount pressure on Russia to stop the war in Ukraine.
On the same day, Indian envoy to Russia, Vinay Kumar, in an interview with a Russian news agency said that India will continue buying oil from wherever it gets the "best deal".
Clarifying India’s position on US criticism of India’s oil trade with Russia, Kumar said that trade takes place on a commercial basis. "Indian companies will continue buying from wherever they get the best deal. So that's what the current situation is,” he said.
"There are other countries including the US itself and in Europe trading with Russia," Kumar added.
“We have clearly stated that our objective is [the] energy security of 1.4 billion people of India and India's cooperation with Russia, as of several other countries, has helped to bring about stability in the oil market, global oil market," the Hindu quoted him as saying.
Vance’s statement came a day after Union external affairs minister S. Jaishankar rejected the charge that Indian oil purchases were bankrolling Moscow. He argued that far larger buyers such as the European Union and China had not been subjected to the same scrutiny. “If the argument is energy, there are bigger buyers. If the argument is who’s trading more, there are bigger traders,” he said.
He added that New Delhi’s decisions reflected its “strategic autonomy.”
Jaishankar has maintained that the US tariffs on India are “unjustified and unfair”, and were being wrongly “presented as an oil issue”.
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro had accused India of acting as a “laundromat for the Kremlin” last week, saying that he saw the additional tariffs taking effect.
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