New Delhi: US President Donald Trump’s trade adviser and close aide Peter Navarro has once again targeted India over its Russian oil imports, this time in a barrage of posts on X which he ended with a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in saffron robes. “The road to peace in Ukraine runs through New Delhi,” he wrote.
The posts came a day after Navarro labelled the Russia-Ukraine war as “Modi’s war”.
Navarro has repeatedly accused New Delhi of funding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war machine”, and escalated his rhetoric Friday by saying that “India’s big oil lobby has turned the world’s largest democracy into a massive refining hub and oil money laundromat for the Kremlin”.
In the posts, he linked India’s growing imports of Russian crude to America’s $50 billion trade deficit with New Delhi, arguing that US dollars spent on Indian goods are funnelled into discounted Russian oil purchases, refined and resold globally, and the “proceeds flow to India’s politically connected energy titans—and directly into Putin’s war chest”.
He further criticised former US president Joe Biden for “looking the other way at this madness”, while Trump is confronting it.
“A 50% tariff—25% for unfair trade and 25% for national security—is a direct response. If India, the world’s largest democracy, wants to be treated like a strategic partner of the US, it needs to act like one,” he wrote.
9/ The Biden admin largely looked the other way at this madness.
President Trump is confronting it.
A 50% tariff—25% for unfair trade and 25% for national security—is a direct response.
If India, the world's largest democracy, wants to be treated like a strategic partner of… pic.twitter.com/XAt6aa4JLA
— Peter Navarro (@RealPNavarro) August 28, 2025
While India has clarified that its energy policy is shaped by market offers and the global situation, Navarro has repeatedly accused the nation of contributing to Russia’s financing of the “war machine” in Ukraine.
“We run a $50-billion trade deficit with India—and they’re using our dollars to buy Russian oil. They make a killing and Ukrainians die,” he wrote, proceeding to detail the “India-Russia oil mathematics”.
2/ Here’s how the India-Russia oil mathematics works:
American consumers buy Indian goods while India keeps out U.S. exports through high tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
India uses our dollars to buy discounted Russian crude. pic.twitter.com/wee9aZWuBw
— Peter Navarro (@RealPNavarro) August 28, 2025
“American consumers buy Indian goods while India keeps out US exports through high tariffs and non-tariff barriers. India uses our dollars to buy discounted Russian crude. Indian refiners, with their silent Russian partners, refine and flip the black-market oil for big profits on the international market–while Russia pockets hard currency to fund its war on Ukraine.”
6/ India now exports over 1 million barrels a day in refined petroleum—more than half the volume of Russian crude it imports.
The proceeds flow to India’s politically connected energy titans—and directly into Putin’s war chest. pic.twitter.com/y1ZlYdHY5J
— Peter Navarro (@RealPNavarro) August 28, 2025
“This isn’t just about India’s unfair trade—it’s about cutting off the financial lifeline India has extended to Putin’s war machine,” Navarro wrote on X.
He also repeated his assertions from a piece in Financial Times this month, that before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian oil made up less than 1% of India’s imports while “today it makes up over 30%”.
In the posts on X, he further accused India of “strategic freeloading” by buying Russian weapons, while demanding that US firms transfer sensitive military technology and build plants in India.
The rant comes as PM Modi visits Japan and prepares to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as Putin.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)