white House trade advisor Peter Navarro’s offensive against India over its purchase of Russian oil touched a shrill new pitch this week, as he sought to defend the 50 per cent tariff the US has imposed on Indian goods. Continuing his attacks against what he called the Kremlin’s “oil money laundromat”, the senior Trump aide said in an interview on Sunday, “Brahmins are profiteering at the expense of the Indian people… we want that to stop.” In an especially delicate moment for India-US ties, remarks like these are intemperate and ungainly. They mark a rash abandonment of the circumspection called for in high diplomacy, which must leave spaces open for manoeuvre, for both sides.
As would be known by now, hectoring of the kind unleashed by Navarro and other members of the current US administration does not work with India — in fact, it can only lead to a hardening of positions. New Delhi has been consistent in prioritising the country’s economic and strategic goals amid global turbulence. In the present instance, too, Delhi has refused to succumb to US pressure over Russian oil imports, underlining its sovereign choice and the imperative to meet its own energy needs. The complications that currently cast a shadow over India-US trade ties can certainly not be dismissed; neither can they be addressed by name-calling. If Navarro describes India as the “maharaja of tariffs” — US President Donald Trump called the country “tariff king” — it emerges from the Americans’ longstanding frustration over the protectionist walls propped up by New Delhi around domestic industry — something that has also been a bugbear in India’s ties with other trading partners. On vexatious issues like these, however, sound and fury can accomplish nothing and progress can only be made through sustained conversation and patient give-and-take.
So far, New Delhi has done well to ignore such loose rhetoric. The India-US relationship, whether on trade, security or technology, is far too consequential for both countries. Reckless words should not be allowed to derail it. This appears to be understood by sections of the Trump administration as well — not too long after Navarro’s broadside, a post shared on X by the American embassy in India characterised India-US ties as “a defining relationship of the 21st century”, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that “the enduring friendship” between India and the US can help realise the “tremendous potential of our economic relationship”. So far, Delhi has shown forbearance. Washington must respond by re-engaging on a more sober note.
