NEW DELHI: The Indian market witnessed an increase in imports of precious metals from the US in November 2025, with a 371% jump over November 2024 in import of high-value products such as gold, silver and ornaments, together valued at $937.74 million, according to the government data.
In terms of volume, gold imports from the US jumped by 95% to 4,505 kg in November 2025 and silver imports by 6,983% to 1,28,342 kg, with experts suggesting that building inventories of previous metals is one of the quickest ways to reduce the US’ trade deficit with India.
The Union commerce and industry ministry did not respond to an email seeking comment.
A high trade deficit with India is one of the key reasons why the US imposed a reciprocal tariff of 25% on India from August 7 (another 25% penal tariff for purchasing Russian crude was imposed from August 27, leading to total 50% additional levy on Indian goods). India’s merchandise export to the US was $86.51 billion in 2024-25, while it imported $45.62 billion worth of American goods that year, resulting in a trade surplus of $40.89 billion.
India has also raised energy imports from the US. Its imports of crude oil, coal, coke, briquettes, and petroleum products from the country rose 47.6% in November 2025 to $1.91 billion as compared to $1.29 billion in November 2025. In terms of quantity, total imports of these energy items from the US jumped over 31.4% to 5.4 million tonnes in November 2025 as compared to 4.1 million tonnes in November 2024, according to official data. Cumulatively, US exported gold, silver and jewellery of gold and other precious metals worth over $2.86 billion to India in the first eight months (April-November) of the current financial year (2025-26) as compared to $1.7 billion in the same period of 2024-25, registering a 68.23% jump.
Besides high-value metals, an import surge of petroleum crude from America has also been seen this financial year. India’s crude oil imports from the US rose 69% to $7.64 billion in April-November 2025 as compared to $4.52 billion in the corresponding period in 2024. Besides crude oil, India imported $2.32 billion worth of refined products from the US in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, taking the total value of petroleum imports from the US to $9.96 billion, data showed.
The surge in import of high-end items such as gold and silver increased after Washington imposed a 50% tariff on Indian exports. And Indian refiners, however, said that they have stopped importing sanctioned Russian crude from the mid-November. India’s expensive metal imports from the US along with higher purchase of American crude oil, led to a significant jump in Washington’s overall exports of goods to the Indian market, with the value crossing $35.40 billion in April-November 2025, registering a 13.49% year-on-year increase, data showed.
According to data on merchandise imports of over 150 items from the US, other high value American shipments to India included computer hardware worth $894.64 million in in April-November 2025, copper and its products ($586.93 million), electrical machinery and equipment ($1.08 billion), electronic components ($1.72 billion), electronics instruments ($647.32 million), fruits ($955.62 million), medical and scientific instruments ($822.53 million), organic chemicals ($964.31 million), and telecom instruments ($677.49 million).