Trump aide: India must act as strategic partner to be treated as one

New Delhi was “now cozying up to both Russia and China”, he wrote. “If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the U.S., it needs to start acting like one,” he said.

These words have caused some disquiet in New Delhi, as Navarro’s statements squarely blamed India for the continuation of the Russian war in Ukraine.

Sources in New Delhi said this is a gross misreading of the situation, as India had bought Russian oil to cushion the inflationary impact of the war on its citizens. This “targeting” of India is being seen as one of the ways on how the Trump administration got Russian President Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table.

Navarro himself has hardened his views on trade since China’s entry into the WTO in 2001. During Trump’s first term, he spoke in defence of tariffs against China, and actually saw trade deficits as bad for the US economy. In the second term, he has turned more hawkish, proposing higher tariffs and advocating strong protectionist measures.

India has pushed back against the US for its double standards, as Washington has not targeted China and Europe for their purchases of Russian energy.

Shortly after Trump announced on August 6 a 25% additional tariff on India for importing Russian oil taking the total tariff rate to 50 per cent, Delhi said the action was “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”, and said it would take “all actions necessary” to “protect its national interests”. India also said oil imports from Russia rose as its traditional oil supplies were diverted to Europe, with the US having “actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability”.

Sources in New Delhi said that Washington had been conveyed about the Indian position and its compulsions over the last three years, but Navarro’s approach shows that India has been framed as the adversary, and not a strategic partner.

India’s public sector refiners have publicly stated that they have not received any directive or indication from the government with respect to their Russian oil imports, and their strategy on buying Moscow’s crude continues to be dictated by economic and commercial considerations.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow’s share in New Delhi’s oil imports was less than 2 per cent. With much of the West shunning Russian crude following the invasion, Russia began offering discounts on its oil to willing buyers. Indian refiners were quick to avail the opportunity, and Russia—earlier a peripheral supplier of oil — emerged as the biggest source of crude within months, displacing the traditional West Asian suppliers. Russia now accounts for 35-40 per cent of India’s total oil imports by volume.

Despite the noise from sections of the West against India over the country’s hefty purchases of Russian crude, this had Washington’s blessings, as the US wanted energy markets to remain stable and well-supplied, according to various US officials who served in the Joe Biden administration, including former US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti.

Russian oil is not under sanctions, and is only subject to a price cap imposed by the US and its allies that applies if Western shipping and insurance services are used for transporting the oil.

In his piece, Navarro wrote, “Here’s how the India-Russia oil mathematics works. American consumers buy Indian goods. India uses those dollars to buy discounted Russian crude. That Russian crude is refined and resold around the world by Indian profiteers in league with silent Russian partners — while Russia pockets hard currency to fund its war machine in Ukraine. As Russia continues to hammer Ukraine, helped by India’s financial support, American (and European) taxpayers are then forced to spend tens of billions more to help Ukraine’s defence.”

And then he linked it to the tariffs that India imposes on the US. “Meanwhile, India keeps slamming the door on American exports through high tariffs and trade barriers. More than 300,000 soldiers and civilians have been killed, while Nato’s eastern flank grows more exposed and the west foots the bill for India’s oil laundering. India imposes some of the highest average tariffs in the world, along with a dense web of non-tariff barriers that punish American workers and businesses. As a result, the US runs a massive trade deficit with India — nearing $50bn annually. And here’s the kicker: India is using those US trade dollars to buy Russian oil,” he wrote.

He also said India’s imports of Russian oil have increased from less than 1 per cent to more than 30 per cent of India’s total oil imports. “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. The refiners buy oil at a steep discount, process it, and then export refined fuels to Europe, Africa, and Asia — all the while shielding India from sanctions scrutiny under the pretence of neutrality. The refining trade is large — India exports more than a million barrels per day in refined petroleum products, equivalent to over half the volume of crude it imports from Russia. The proceeds flow to India’s politically connected energy titans, and in turn, into Vladimir Putin’s war chest. India’s dependence on Russian crude is opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world’s efforts to isolate Putin’s war economy,” he wrote.

According to Indian refiners and the government, there is nothing illegitimate about this trade as there is no specific ban on fuel imports from countries that were buying Russian oil. That ban has now been announced by the EU, and is slated to take effect from January 2026. Biden administration officials, too, had clarified that export of fuels and petroleum products by Indian refiners did not amount to circumvention of restrictions on Russian crude.

In 2024, Anna Morris, the then US Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, said at an event in Delhi that Russian oil once refined into petroleum fuels and products could no longer be considered of Russian origin, dismissing the argument that India refiners were facilitating Russian petroleum’s entry into Europe.

He also brought in India’s defence ties with Russia, without providing any context that they are from the Soviet era, and made the case that providing India with modern tech is a risky proposition. “India continues to rely heavily on Russian military hardware, with Russia supplying roughly 36 per cent of India’s total arms imports between 2020 and 2024. While India has increasingly turned to the US, France and Israel to meet its defence needs, those deals often come with strings attached. For example, India has routinely demanded that US companies transfer sensitive military technology and build factories on Indian soil as a condition of sale. That blunts any benefit to reducing America’s trade balance while it also risks transferring cutting-edge US military capabilities to an India now cozying up to both Russia and China.”

Blaming the Biden administration that “largely looked the other way at this strategic and geopolitical madness” and that the Trump administration is “confronting it”, he justified Trump administration’s 50 per cent tariffs on India, “A recent executive order issued by the president will impose a 25 per cent national security tariff on Indian goods to address the threat posed by India’s continued importation of Russian oil. This new tariff is in addition to the 25 per cent reciprocal tariff already in place. This two-pronged policy will hit India where it hurts — its access to US markets — even as it seeks to cut off the financial lifeline it has extended to Russia’s war effort. If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the US, it needs to start acting like one.”