New Delhi: Shortly after visuals emerged of PM Narendra Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in China’s Tianjin, US President Donald Trump Monday termed the current state of India-US trade ties a “disaster” and a “totally one sided relationship”.
In a fresh tirade on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump also claimed that the US is India’s “biggest client” and yet is charged “high tariffs”.
“We do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us. In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest ‘client’, but we sell them very little, until now a totally one sided relationship, and it has been for many decades,” he wrote.
He then added: “The reason is that India has charged us, until now, such high Tariffs, the most of any country, that our businesses are unable to sell into India. It has been a totally one sided disaster!”
Trump’s comments follow an escalating rhetoric by his close aides Peter Navarro and Scott Bessent as well as Vice President J.D. Vance who have targeted India for buying Russian oil and defence systems. The Trump administration, after having introduced a 25 percent baseline tariff on Indian goods, which came into effect on 1 August, levied an additional 25 percent punitive tariff, which came into effect on 27 August, citing purchase of Russian oil and defence systems.
In his latest attack, his trade adviser Navarro claimed India’s big oil lobbies are “in bed with Russian refineries” and ‘Brahmins’ in India are “profiteering” from the purchase of Russian oil. He had earlier labelled India the “laundromat of Kremlin” that funds “Putin’s war machine.”
Along similar lines, Trump added “points to ponder” in his post, writing: “India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the U.S. They have now offered to cut their Tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago. Just some simple facts for people to ponder!!!”
India, for its part, has defended its imports of Russian oil as essential for energy security and has resisted US pressure to scale back, stressing its independent foreign policy.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: ‘Brahmins’ remark & ‘Modi’s war’ to ‘freeloading’: What rattled Trump advisers have said about India
Let this American dog bark. Perhaps the SC can neuter him and put him in a compound