A day after controversially labeling the Ukraine conflict as “Modi’s war,” former Trump adviser Peter Navarro has intensified his criticism of India, calling the country an “oil money laundromat for the Kremlin.”
Navarro, who served as Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing in the Trump administration, posted a lengthy thread on X on Thursday, targeting India’s import of Russian oil and its steep trade tariffs.
His comments followed merely a day after the Trump administration's 50 per cent tariff on Indian products went into effect on Wednesday. The duty is divided into "25 per cent for unfair trade and 25 per cent for national security," Navarro said.
"India's Big Oil lobby has made the world's largest democracy a huge refining center and money laundering hub for Kremlin oil money," he said. Navarro accused Indian refiners of buying Russian discounted crude, refining it, and shipping refined products to Europe, Africa, and Asia.
"India now sells more than 1 million barrels a day of refined petroleum products — more than half the volume it imports of Russian crude. The revenue goes to India's politically influential energy moguls — and straight into Putin's coffers," he asserted.
He went on to say that if India wishes to be "treated like a strategic partner of the US, it needs to act like one." The adviser on trade also criticized New Delhi for stonewalling American exports by "high tariffs and non-tariff barriers" while reaping the benefit of the US market.
"India pays us with our dollars to purchase Russian crude at a discount. Indian refiners, and their quiet Russian investors, refine and resell the black-market oil at huge profits on the global market – while Russia earns hard currency to finance its war against Ukraine," Navarro wrote.
Referring to increased energy trade, Navarro stated Russian oil was "less than one per cent of India's imports and today it is over 30 per cent — over 1.5 million barrels a day." He insisted this increase is nothing to do with domestic consumption but is "fuelled by Indian profiteers and an added cost of blood and destruction in Ukraine."
In his view, "As the United States shells out to equip Ukraine, India funds Russia even as it imposes some of the highest tariffs in the world on US products, thereby penalizing American exporters." Navarro further pointed out that the U.S. has a $50 billion trade deficit with India and blamed New Delhi for using "our dollars to buy Russian oil."
"They make a killing and Ukrainians die. And it doesn't stop there. India keeps purchasing Russian arms — while insisting that US companies share sensitive military technology and establish factories in India. That's strategic freeloading," he stated.
He also accused the Biden administration of looking the other way, as he depicted Trump as taking remedial action.
India, for its part, has labeled the newly instituted tariffs as "unjustified and unreasonable," making it clear that like any large economy, it will act to defend "its national interests and economic security.
Navarro's tweets were followed by images with captions such as "India-Russia Blood oil trade" and "Putin's war chest," along with pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and of Modi sitting in a meditative position. His tweet thread followed just one day after he informed Bloomberg that the "road to peace" in Ukraine goes "right through New Delhi," despite his insistence that "everybody in America loses because of what India is doing."
"So we, all of America, lose due to what India is doing. The consumers and businesses and all lose, and workers lose because India's high tariffs cost jobs and factories and income and higher wages, and then the taxpayers lose, because we had to pay for Modi's war," Navarro said.
Though New Delhi has yet to react to his new remarks, Navarro's allegations have touched off political controversy in Washington. The Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee condemned Trump for "singling out" India while ignoring China, which imports even greater amounts of Russian oil.
“Instead of imposing sanctions on China or others purchasing larger amounts of Russian oil, Trump’s singling out India with tariffs, hurting Americans & sabotaging the US-India relationship in the process. It’s almost like it’s not about Ukraine at all,” the committee said in a post on X.
