Trump says India ‘not a good trading partner', vows tariff hike in 24 hours
'India has not been a good trading partner because they do a lot of business with us but we don't do business with them,' Trump said in an interview to the American news channel. 'So we settled on 25%. But I think I am going to raise that rate very substantially in the next 24 hours.'
The US president repeated his accusation that India's purchase of Russian oil was 'fuelling the war machine'.
'If they are going to do that, I am not going to be happy,' he added.
Trump has been threatening to impose a penalty on India for buying a large portion of its military equipment and fuel from Russia amid the war on Ukraine.
The US president's comments on Tuesday came a day after he announced that Washington would substantially increase the tariffs imposed on India because of New Delhi's purchase and sale of Russian oil in the 'open market for big profit'.
In response to the US president's comments on Monday, New Delhi said that the targeting of India by Washington and the European Union for importing oil from Russia was 'unjustified and unreasonable'.
India's Ministry of External Affairs stated that the nations criticising India are 'themselves indulging in trade with Russia'.
Trump: India has not been a good trading partner. https://t.co/n6GvDNnqxa
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) August 5, 2025
The US 'continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV [electric vehicle] industry, fertilisers as well as chemicals', the ministry added.
It also pointed out that the European Union had bilateral trade of 67.5 billion euros in goods with Russia in 2024. 'In addition, it had trade in services estimated at 17.2 billion euros in 2023,' said the ministry. 'This is significantly more than India's total trade with Russia that year or subsequently.'
The penalty Trump has threatened to impose on India would be in addition to the 25% levy Washington announced on imported goods, as part of the so-called reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries that have not finalised separate trade agreements with the US.
While the 25% reciprocal tariff was to take effect on August 7, the executive order signed by Trump on Thursday had made no mention of the penalty.
On Friday, the US president said that he had heard that India was ' no longer going to be buying oil' from Russia.
This came after Reuters on Thursday reported that Indian state-owned refiners had halted oil purchases from Russia over the previous week. However, on Saturday, ANI quoted unidentified Indian officials as saying that the state-owned refiners are continuing to source oil from Russian suppliers.
The US president's remarks on Friday had come just hours after India's external affairs ministry responded to the Reuters report, stating that decisions on sourcing fuel are guided by market dynamics.
On Thursday, Trump said that he does not care about 'what India does with Russia' and that 'they can take their dead economies down together, for all I care'.
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