New Delhi: Amid ongoing trade tariff negotiations between the United States and India, US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to impose 25% “secondary tariffs” on countries that import Venezuelan oil.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that he was imposing the secondary tariff on Venezuela for “numerous reasons”, alleging that country “has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature”.
“We are in the process of returning them to Venezuela – It is a big task! In addition, Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the Freedoms which we espouse. Therefore, any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country,” he added.
“That’s on top of existing tariffs – yes,” the US president confirmed while speaking to reporters.
Venezuela exported 660,000 barrels a day of crude globally last year, the report stated, citing consultancy Kpler, according to a report by Financial Times.
The move, set to come into force on April 2 along with the reciprocal tariffs of the Trump administration, is likely to impact a number of countries, including China, India, Spain and Italy.
It could disrupt crude markets, something that the US has been trying to avoid. For India, it could mean a negative impact on the oil import diversification strategy.
As per the executive order, once applied, the tariffs would remain in place for one year “after the last date on which the country imported Venezuelan oil”, unless the US commerce secretary approved their earlier removal, FT reported.
India resumed crude oil imports from Venezuela in December 2023 after a gap of over three years, as the US temporarily eased sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector.
While the US sanctions came back within a few months, some volumes of Venezuelan crude continued to make their way to countries, including India.
FT reported that local companies, including Reliance Industries, which operates the world’s biggest refining complex and is owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, secured Venezuelan oil through waiver licenses granted to US-based Chevron.
According to a report by The Times of India, in 2024, India imported 22 million barrels of oil from Venezuela.
Trump’s announcement follows last month’s suspension of the deportation pipeline between the US and Venezuela as the US cited Caracas’ failure to uphold an agreement to take back migrants quickly. Although Venezuela withdrew from accepting deportation flights for a bit, on Saturday, Caracas announced reaching a new agreement with Washington to resume deportations.
About 200 Venezuelan nationals were deported from the US through Honduras.
