US warns India could face higher tariffs if Trump-Putin talks fail
Washington hit New Delhi with a 25 per cent import tariff on 31 July and then a 25 per cent penalty on 6 August primarily for its continued purchase of Russian crude oil, bringing the effective rate to a steep 50 per cent.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said Washington could hike the secondary tariff imposed on India after Mr Trump warned of "very severe consequences" if a ceasefire deal was not reached in Alaska on Friday.
"We've put secondary tariffs on Indians for buying Russian oil. And I could see, if things don't go well, then sanctions or secondary tariffs could go up," Mr Bessent told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.
"President Trump is meeting with President Putin, and the Europeans are in the wings carping about how he should do it, what he should do. The Europeans need to join us in these sanctions. The Europeans need to be willing to put on these secondary sanctions.'
Mr Trump is travelling to Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday for a high-stakes meeting with the Russian leader. He says the talks are aimed at "setting the table" for a follow-up summit involving Ukraine as well.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump threatened "severe consequences" if Mr Putin didn't agree to a truce in Ukraine but did not specify what the consequences could be or for whom.
'There will be, I don't have to say, there will be very severe consequences,' Mr Trump said at the Kennedy Centre in Washington after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky suggested, in a virtual meeting with the US president, that Mr Putin was bluffing about seeking peace.
Mr Trump has been attacking India in recent days for its refusal to stop buying oil from Russia. He has accused India of financing Russia's war in Ukraine by purchasing discounted crude from Moscow.
India has responded that it needs cheap oil to meet the energy needs of its fast-growing economy.
India has been sourcing nearly a third of its oil needs from Russia since the Ukraine war began in early 2022. It is now the second-largest importer of Russian crude after China.
In an unusually sharp response, India accused the US of hypocrisy in punishing it for buying Russian oil while continuing to buy Russian uranium hexafluoride, palladium and fertiliser itself.
Narendra Modi's government called the US tariffs "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable" and vowed to "take all actions necessary to protect its national interests'.
On Thursday, India's foreign ministry said it hoped relations with the US would move forward based on mutual respect and shared interests.
For India, the steep US levies threaten to disrupt access to its largest export market where its shipments totalled nearly $87bn (£65bn) in 2024, hitting sectors like textiles, footwear, gems and jewellery.
The increased levies place Indian exporters at a 30-35 per cent disadvantage versus rivals in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Japan, according to Reuters.
It is also expected to shake up India's employment sector, with millions of jobs on the line in textiles, gems, leather and chemicals companies.
Talks for a trade deal have been ongoing for several months. It is believed that India's reluctance to reduce duties on agriculture and dairy is a major sticking point in reaching an agreement.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Love in a cold climate: Putin romances Trump in Alaska with talk of rigged elections and a trip to Moscow
That was the moment he knew it was true love. Donald Trump turned to gaze at Vladimir Putin as the Russian president publicly endorsed his view that, had Trump been president instead of Joe Biden, the war in Ukraine would never have happened. 'Today President Trump was saying that if he was president back then, there would be no war, and I'm quite sure that it would indeed be so,' Putin said. 'I can confirm that.' Vladimir, you complete me, Trump might have replied. To hell with all those Democrats, democrats, wokesters, fake news reporters and factcheckers. Here is a man who speaks my authoritarian alternative facts language. The damned doubters had been worried about Friday's big summit at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a cold war-era airbase under a big sky and picturesque mountains on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. They feared that it might resemble Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler in Munich 1938, or Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin carving up the world for the great powers at the Yalta Conference in 1945. It was worse than that. Trump, 79, purportedly the most powerful man in the world, literally rolled out the red carpet for a Russian dictator indicted for alleged war crimes over the abduction and transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children. Putin's troops have also been accused of indiscriminate murder, rape and torture on an appalling scale. In more than 100 countries, the 72-year-old would have been arrested the moment he set foot on the tarmac. In America, he was treated to a spontaneous burst of applause from the waiting Trump, who gave him a long, lingering handshake and a ride in 'the Beast', the presidential limousine. Putin could be seen cackling on the back seat, looking like the cat who got the cream. As a former KGB man, did he leave behind a bug or two? Three hours later, the men walked on stage for an anticlimactic 12-minute press conference against a blue backdrop printed with the words 'Pursuing peace'. Putin is reportedly 170cm (5.7ft) tall, while Trump is 190cm (6.3ft), yet the Russian seemed be the dominant figure. Curiously, given that the US was hosting, Putin was allowed to speak first, which gave him the opportunity to frame the narrative. More curiously still, the deferential Trump spoke for less time than his counterpart, though he did slip in a compliment: 'I've always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin – with Vladimir.' The low-energy Trump declined to take any questions from reporters – a rare thing indeed for the attention monster and wizard of 'the weave' – and shed little light on the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine. Perhaps he wanted to give his old pals at Fox News the exclusive. Having snubbed the world's media, Trump promptly sat down and spilled the beans – well, a few of them – to host Sean Hannity, a cheerleader who has even spoken at a Trump rally. The president revealed: 'Vladimir Putin said something – one of the most interesting things. He said: 'Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting … No country has mail-in voting. It's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.' 'And he said that to me because we talked about 2020. He said: 'You won that election by so much and that's how we got here.' He said: 'And if you would have won, we wouldn't have had a war. You'd have all these millions of people alive now instead of dead. And he said: 'You lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election.'' In other words, the leader of one of the world's oldest democracies was taking advice from a man who won last year's Russian election with more than 87% of the vote and changed the constitution so he can stay in power until 2036. In this warped retelling of history, the insurrectionists of January 6 were actually trying to stop a war. Evidently Putin knows that whispering Trump's favourite lies into his ear is the way to his heart. It worked. The Russian leader, visiting the United States for the first time in a decade, got his wish of being welcomed back on the world stage and made to look the equal of the US president. He could also go home reassured that, despite a recent rough patch, and despite Trump's brief bromance with Elon Musk, he loves you yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Next time in Moscow,' he told Trump in English. 'Oh, that's an interesting one,' the US president responded. 'I'll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening.' Trump's humiliation was complete. But all was not lost. At least no one was talking about Jeffrey Epstein or the price of vegetables.
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Putin criticised by Ukraine's ambassador to Australia after inconclusive meeting with Trump
Vladimir Putin remains determined to 'revive the Soviet Union' by 'destroying democracy next door', Ukraine's ambassador to Australia has said in the wake of the Russian president's inconclusive meeting with the US president, Donald Trump. Putin and Trump met for nearly three hours in Alaska, emerging to tell reporters that 'great progress' had been made on a deal to end Russia's war on Ukraine but that there was no peace agreement. 'There's no deal until there's a deal,' Trump said, saying he would brief Nato leaders and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the meeting. Putin, through an interpreter, said while he agreed Ukraine's security should be guaranteed insisted the 'root causes' of the conflict must be resolved. Speaking to the ABC in the wake of the meeting, Ukraine's ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko said the root cause of the conflict from Putin's perspective was a sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine. 'When Putin talks about the 'root cause of war', it's an independent Ukraine on the map of Europe. That's the only cause of war for Russia. 'He planned to take over Kyiv in several days, the entire Ukraine in several weeks … he is pursuing his ambition of destroying democracy next door.' Putin had given no indication he was prepared to withdraw from his irredentist ambitions, Myroshnychenko said. 'Putin is just out there on his mission to revive the Soviet Union, to revive the Russian empire, and it can't be revived without Ukraine. Just overnight, as we speak, Russians have attacked many Ukrainian cities, sent many drones. So we don't really see any indication of him ending his war.' Sign up: AU Breaking News email Myroshnychenko said while it was a positive step that the meeting had taken place, a bilateral discussion – with only the US and Russia at the table – could not broker a sustainable peace. 'We welcome America's involvement in this to make sure this war can end, but we understand it can't end without Ukraine involved, without Europe involved … we can't discuss the security of Europe without Europe at the table.' In Anchorage, Alaska, Trump and Putin's planned one-on-one meeting was replaced by a three-on-three meeting that also included US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff on the American side. Alongside Putin was Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, a former ambassador to the US. After the meeting, the two presidents addressed reporters but took no questions. The Russian president spoke first, urging both countries to 'turn the page' on their fraught relationship and 'go back to cooperation'. He said he and Trump had worked out 'an understanding' but no final agreement and urged European leaders to 'not throw a wrench in the works' and to 'not use backroom dealings' to undermine the progress that had been made. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'I have every reason to believe that moving down this path we can come – and the sooner the better – to the end of the conflict in Ukraine.' But Putin also insisted that the 'root causes' of the conflict must be resolved. Those 'root causes' have previously included demands for Ukraine's formal renunciation of Nato membership as well as its 'denazification' – an ill-defined set of demands that include the removal of Zelenskyy as president. The US president, who spoke more briefly than Putin, described the meeting as 'extremely productive'. Trump warned: 'There's no deal until there's a deal. I will call up Nato … I'll, of course, call up [Ukraine's] president Zelenskyy and tell him about today's meeting. It's ultimately up to them.' The chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, Kateryna Argyrou, said Putin went to Alaska with 'nothing to offer except more war'. 'No ceasefire, no retreat from his maximalist demands … even as discussions were taking place, Russian missiles and drones were raining down on Ukrainian cities and towns.' Argyrou said Putin only wanted Ukraine's surrender, not peace. 'His recycled propaganda about 'root causes' is simply code for denying Ukraine's right to exist as a sovereign, independent nation – a denial made real through the devastation Ukrainians face every day. 'There can be no lasting peace until Russia faces the truth: Ukraine is a sovereign nation.' Argyrou urged Australia to 'stay united' with allies in backing Ukraine's defence and enforcing sanctions against Russian figures.
Sky News
27 minutes ago
- Sky News
Trump let Putin in from the cold - and appeared to receive little in return
Donald Trump landed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson with the aspiration of departing a few hours later hailed as a peacemaker and a deal broker. Instead, he returns to Washington having let an international pariah back in from the cold and seemingly received precious little in return. If President Vladimir Putin pitched up on the tarmac of many of the world's airports, he could, in theory, be immediately handcuffed. This, after all, is a man wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, including for the alleged abduction of Ukrainian children. Instead, the red carpet was, quite literally, rolled out for him in Anchorage. A flypast was arranged, featuring F35 fighter jets, the very planes that are regularly scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft operating off the coast of Alaska. Various military members lined up to salute him. Then came the most surprising moment of all. Alongside Trump, Putin climbed into the Beast, the US President's heavily armoured limousine. A dictator, who invaded a sovereign nation three and a half years ago and has been in isolation ever since, riding alongside the most powerful man in the world on a US military base. No wonder he was grinning in the back seat. 12:20 In the news conference afterwards, Putin was invited to speak before Trump and talked of greeting him on arrival, referring to him as a "dear neighbour". You would be forgiven for thinking this was a summit on Putin's home turf and not the other way round. There was talk of an agreement, but no detail at all on what was agreed. There was no mention of any follow-up meeting with Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as had been promised. And, there was not a word on the issue at the heart of the matter: ceasefire. Trump is the producer of his own presidency, and this summit was carefully choreographed, made for TV, even if it was thrown together at short notice. But it was Putin who seemed to be pulling the strings. Journalists shouted questions at him about whether he had underestimated Ukraine, and about the killing of civilians. But he threw a deaf ear. And in his presence, Trump - who loves to talk so much - kept schtum, too. 3:56 There was a mismatch in their delegations, too. Putin was joined in the bilat by his grizzled and chiselled foreign secretary, Sergey Lavrov, a veteran of these events, and a wily negotiator. Trump sat alongside his old golfing pal Steve Witkoff, a real estate agent who is now Trump's peace envoy, trying to resolve the conflicts in Ukraine and in Gaza. Witkoff's repeated visits to Moscow in recent months led to this summit. Some were left wondering whether he had miscalculated how much Putin was willing to shift on his maximalist goals in Ukraine. Many foreign policy experts believe Witkoff is too naive for the job and this meeting won't have persuaded them otherwise. The Kremlin team, as ever, had done their homework. They know that Trump responds to flattery. And flatter him, Putin did. One of Trump's most consistent lines is that he would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president. Putin gave him a PR boost by suggesting that it was an accurate sentiment. He also, Trump says, agreed with him that he would have won the 2020 election. In the lead-up to the meeting, Trump promised "severe consequences" for Russia if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire. There is no suggestion that he did. Yet Trump appeared on Fox News and talked admiringly of him, claiming Putin "spoke very sincerely", with Trump saying he believed the Russian President genuinely had a desire to end the war in Ukraine. The fact that Putin started the war and continues his onslaught in Ukraine, seemingly overlooked.
