The U.S. is trying to bludgeon India into the U.S. axis. India has never wanted to be in anyone’s axis. From Andrew Korybko at korybko.substack.com:
They claim that it’s “profiteering” off of the Ukrainian Conflict and “funding Putin’s war machine”.
The US punished India for its energy imports from Russia by imposing additional 25% tariffs on it, thus bringing their total tariffs to 50%, despite China and the EU being the largest respective importers of Russian oil and LNG according to Minister of External Affairs Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended this policy by accusing India of “profiteering”, while Trump’s senior counselor Peter Navarro did the same on the supposed basis that India is “funding Putin’s war machine”.
As regards Bessent’s claim, while it’s true that India exports some processed Russian oil to the West, Jaishankar revealed in his aforesaid comments that “the Americans said for the last few years that we should do everything to stabilize the world energy markets, including buying oil from Russia.” For context, a representative from India’s Petroleum Ministry claimed in late 2023 that these imports prevented “havoc” on the market, which was analyzed here at the time as averting a global polycrisis.
In response to Navarro, he’s turning a blind eye towards China and the EU’s imports of Russian oil and LNG, which “fund Putin’s war machine” much more than India’s imports do. He’s also ignoring what Putin revealed during his Anchorage Summit with Trump about how Russian-US trade has increased by 20% since his counterpart returned to office. These double standards in turn lend credence to the claim that the US has ulterior economic and strategic motives for singling India out for its trade with Russia.
Buy from US at three times the RF rate like Europastan?
Not everyone is that stupid.
Some can see right through the BRICS+ hatred.
1945 is long gone, deal with it.