PM Modi and Trump
US President Donald Trump has threatened India second consecutive threats in 24 hours. Trump said on Tuesday that India has not been a good business partner. He further said that India is constantly buying Russian oil. If India did not stop it immediately, it will increase the current 25 percent rate on imported goods from India in the next 24 hours. Trump said in an interview to CNBC that he is working to fuel the war machine. If they are going to do so, I will not be happy. He said that the main problem with India is that its charges are very high. This came a day after Trump’s announcement to increase the US fee “considerable” on India. He has accused India of buying a huge amount of Russian oil and selling it for huge profits.
India criticized
India has sharply criticized the United States and European Union, saying that they are targeting it improperly for procurement of Russian oil, while both countries trade widely with Moscow despite the war in Ukraine. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition party Congress performed a rare demonstration of unity and condemned the repeated criticism of New Delhi by Trump on Tuesday. India’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued late Monday night that it is being revealed that the countries criticizing India are indulging in trade with Russia themselves.
The ministry said that isolating India is unfair. The ministry said that the European Union traded 67.5 billion euros ($ 78.02 billion) with Russia in 2024, including record imports of 1.65 million metric tonnes of LNG. The statement said that the US is continuing import of dandruff uranium hexaphloride for use in its nuclear power industry, palladium, compost and chemicals.
Sudden crack
The sudden rift between India and the US is getting deeper from July 31, when Trump announced a 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods to the US and threatened to finish for the first time on buying Russian oil. India is one of the biggest buyers of crude oil from Russia, which imported about 17.5 lakh barrels of oil daily from January to June this year, which is 1 percent more than a year ago.
A major buyer of Russian oil, Indian refiner Naira Energy, which is mostly owned by Russian institutions, including Oil -major company Rosneft, was banned by the European Union in July, targeting Russia’s oil and energy industry. India has said that it does not support the “unilateral sanctions” imposed by the European Union.
Business experts say that Trump’s tariff can affect India’s economy badly. Ajay Srivastava of New Delhi -based Global Trade Research Initiative said that he hoped that Indian goods exports to the US to be reduced by 30 per cent to $ 86.5 billion to $ 60.6 billion in the 2025 financial year in the current financial year ended March 31.