US Vice President JD Vance has disclosed that President Donald Trump's imposition of steep 50 percent tariffs of goods imported from India was with the objective of exerting "aggressive economic leverage" on Russia to stop bombing Ukraine.
Vance further said he was hopeful Washington could still negotiate a solution to the Russia-Ukraine issue, though new hurdles have now arisen with Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin earlier this month.
"Trump has applied aggressive economic leverage, for example, secondary tariffs on India, to try to make it harder for the Russians to get rich from their oil economy," Vance said while speaking during an exclusive interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press".
Expressing optimism over America's capability to facilitate peace between Russia and Ukraine, Vance said, "We believe we've already seen some significant concessions from both sides, just in the last few weeks."
"He (Trump) tried to make it clear that Russia can be reinvited into the world economy if they stop the killing. But they are going to continue to be isolated if they don't stop the killing," he added.
Ever since India was designated as an outlier by the Trump administration for purchasing discounted Russian crude oil, relations between New Delhi and Washington have worsened. It is notable that the US has not singled out China, and European countries as covered in a recent report, for their Russian crude and natural gas imports, despite them being the biggest purchasers of Russian crude and LNG.
Earlier in the month, President Trump announced that he would raise tariffs on Indian exports to 50 per cent, including an additional 25 per cent tariff that he stated was a penalty for continuing to import oil from Russia.
The US has charged that India’s ongoing purchases of Russian oil are indirectly supporting Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine—an accusation New Delhi has firmly rejected. India claims that its energy purchases, including those from Russia, are made based solely on market factors and the country’s national interest.
In the wake of Western sanctions on Moscow following the country's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, New Delhi started purchasing discounted Russian crude oil, taking advantage of Russian oil supplies many Western countries walked away from.
On Saturday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said at an event in New Delhi, "It's funny to have people who work for a pro-business American administration accusing other people of doing business." He was responding to a question on the US criticism of India on the crude oil issue.
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