India accuses EU, US of double standard over Russian trade
India's criticism followed a renewed threat by US.
President Donald Trump on Monday to raise tariffs on goods from India over its Russian oil purchases, deepening the trade rift between the two countries.
In a rare show of unity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party and the main opposition Congress on Tuesday condemned Trump's repeated criticism of New Delhi.
India's Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued late on Monday that "it is revealing that the very nations criticising India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia".
"It is unjustified to single out India," the ministry said.
It said the EU conducted 67.5 billion euros ($78.02 billion) in trade with Russia in 2024, including record imports of liquefied natural gas reaching 16.5 million metric tons.
The US, the statement said, continues to import Russian uranium hexafluoride for use in its nuclear power industry, palladium, fertilisers and chemicals. It did not give a source for the export information.
The US embassy and the EU's delegation in New Delhi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both the United States and EU have sharply scaled back their trade ties with Russia since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In 2021, Russia was the EU's fifth-largest trading partner, with goods exchange worth 258 billion euros, according to the EU executive European Commission.
Sudden rift
The sudden rift between India and the US has been deepening since July 31, when Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods being shipped to the USand for the first time threatened unspecified penalties for buying Russian oil.
India is one of the biggest buyers of crude from Russia, importing about 1.75 million barrels per day from January to June this year, up 1 percent from a year ago.
Indian refiner Nayara Energy, a major buyer of Russian oil which is majority owned by Russian entities including oil major Rosneft, was subjected to European Union sanctions targeting Russia's oil and energy industry in July.
India has said it does not support "unilateral sanctions" by the EU.
Trade experts say Trump's tariff could badly hurt India's economy.
Ajay Srivastava of the New Delhi-based Global Trade Research Initiative said he expected Indian goods exports to the US to fall 30 percent in the current fiscal year ending March 31, to $60.6 billion from $86.5 billion in the 2025 fiscal year.
India's equity benchmarks fell after Trump's renewed threat of harsh tariffs on goods from India.
Manish Tewari, a member of parliament and Congress leader, said Trump's "disparaging remarks hurt the dignity and self-respect of Indians".
"The time has come to call out this constant bullying and hectoring," he added.
BJP Vice President Baijayant Jay Panda quoted Henry Kissinger - the most powerful USdiplomat of the Cold War era - in a post on X: "To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal." (Reuters)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
31 minutes ago
- Korea Herald
S. Korea to be treated as favored nation for US chip tariffs under trade deal: minister
South Korea will be treated as a most favored nation by the United States in terms of semiconductor exports under a bilateral tariff agreement, the trade minister said Thursday, noting that Korean firms will not be subject to 100 percent duties as announced by US President Donald Trump. "If the US semiconductor tariff rate for MFNs is set at 15 percent, South Korea will also enjoy 15 percent tariffs regardless of the rate going up to 100 percent or 200 percent," Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo said in a radio interview with broadcaster SBS. "In the trade deal, the US administration promised to grant us MFN status when imposing tariffs on the semiconductor and bio sectors in the future," Yeo added. Yeo's remarks came after Trump said his administration will impose a tariff of about 100 percent on semiconductor imports, which is expected to be officially announced in the coming weeks. Asked whether Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc., two major chip manufacturers in Korea, will not face 100 percent tariffs, Yeo answered, "Yes." Industry and trade experts here expect Washington's tariff rate for chip imports from MFNs to be set at 15 percent as the US agreed to apply 15 percent duties on European products in a trade agreement with the European Union last week. In a trade deal with Korea, the Trump administration did not specify how much tariff it will impose on Korean-made semiconductors, but agreed to grant Seoul the status of MFN in the sector. Under the deal, the US lowered its reciprocal tariffs for Korea to 15 percent from the initially proposed 25 percent and also reduced the tariff rate for Korean cars to 15 percent from 25 percent. In return, Seoul made a pledge to invest a combined US$350 billion in the US for cooperation in the shipbuilding, semiconductor, battery and other key industries, while promising to purchase $100 billion worth of American energy products. Earlier in the day, US tech giant Apple Inc. said it is working with Samsung at the latter's foundry plant in Texas to develop a next-generation semiconductor, which will be used for iPhone devices. (Yonhap)
Korea Herald
2 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Brazil's president sees no point in tariff talks with Trump
BRASILIA (Reuters) -- As US tariffs on Brazilian goods jumped to 50 percent Wednesday, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Reuters in an interview that he saw no room for direct talks now with US President Donald Trump that would likely be a "humiliation." Brazil is not about to announce reciprocal tariffs, he said. Nor will his government give up on cabinet-level talks. But Lula himself is in no rush to ring the White House. "The day my intuition says Trump is ready to talk, I won't hesitate to call him," Lula said in an interview from his presidential residence in Brasilia. "But today my intuition says he doesn't want to talk. And I won't humiliate myself." Despite Brazil's exports facing one of the highest tariffs imposed by Trump, the new US trade barriers look unlikely to derail Latin America's largest economy, giving Lula more room to stand his ground against Trump than most Western leaders. Lula described US-Brazil relations at a 200-year nadir after Trump tied the new tariff to his demands for an end to the prosecution of right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is standing trial for plotting to overturn the 2022 election. The president said Brazil's Supreme Court, which is hearing the case against Bolsonaro, "does not care what Trump says and it should not," adding that Bolsonaro should face another trial for provoking Trump's intervention, calling the right-wing former president a "traitor to the homeland." "We had already pardoned the US intervention in the 1964 coup," said Lula, who got his political start as a union leader protesting against the military government that followed a US-backed ouster of a democratically elected president. "But this now is not a small intervention. It's the president of the United States thinking he can dictate rules for a sovereign country like Brazil. It's unacceptable." The Brazilian president said he had no personal issues with Trump, adding that they could meet at the United Nations next month or UN climate talks in November. But he noted Trump's track record of dressing down White House guests such as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "What Trump did with Zelenskyy was humiliation. That's not normal. What Trump did with Ramaphosa was humiliation," Lula said. "One president can't be humiliating another. I respect everyone and I demand respect." Lula said his ministers were struggling to open talks with US peers, so his government was focused on domestic policies to cushion the economic blow of US tariffs, while maintaining "fiscal responsibility." The president declined to elaborate on pending measures to support Brazilian companies, which are expected to include credit lines and other export assistance. He also said he was planning to call leaders from the BRICS group of developing nations, starting with India and China, to discuss the possibility of a joint response to US tariffs. "There is no coordination among the BRICS yet, but there will be," Lula said, comparing multilateral action to the strength of collective bargaining in his union days. "What is the negotiating power of one little country with the United States? None." Separately, he said Brazil was looking at lodging a collective complaint with other countries at the World Trade Organization. "I was born negotiating," said Lula, who was raised in poverty and rose through union ranks to serve two terms as president from 2003 to 2010, then re-entered politics in the 2022 election to defeat the incumbent Bolsonaro. But he said he was in no rush to strike a deal or retaliate against US tariffs: "We need to be very cautious," he said. Asked about countermeasures targeting US companies, such as greater taxation of big technology companies, Lula said his government was studying ways to tax US firms on equal standing with Brazilian companies. Lula also described plans to create a new national policy for Brazil's strategic mineral resources, treating them as a matter of "national sovereignty" to break with a history of mining exports that added little value in Brazil.
Korea Herald
2 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Kakao to debut first OpenAI collaboration next month
Kakao said Thursday that it would unveil the first outcome of its collaboration with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, at its annual developer conference 'if(kakao)' next month, with plans to launch the product by year-end officially. 'We plan to reveal the actual shape of the product in September's 'if(kakao)' event. And before our next earnings announcement, we expect everyone will be able to experience it firsthand,' said Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a during the company's second-quarter earnings conference call. 'Starting in the second half of this year, the artificial intelligence service with the world's largest user base and Korea's dominant mobile platform will join forces to capture the domestic business-to-consumer AI market rapidly.' Kakao also unveiled plans to launch Korea's first on-device AI service based on its lightweight model through its mobile messenger KakaoTalk, signaling a new era of embedded AI experiences. 'Rather than functioning as a separate feature in a fixed space, it will serve as a 'middle layer' that recommends context-aware actions across various parts of KakaoTalk. In time, users will be able to complete necessary tasks entirely within the app,' she said. The announcement came alongside Kakao's release of its second-quarter earnings results, which exceeded market expectations and set new quarterly records for both operating profit and sales. Operating profit for the April-June period jumped 39 percent on-year to 185.9 billion won ($134 million), while revenue rose 1 percent to 2.02 trillion won, according to the company. These results outpaced the market consensus compiled by financial data provider FnGuide, which had forecast 125.4 billion won in operating profit and 1.95 trillion won in sales. Kakao attributed the robust performance to balanced growth across its business lines, particularly advertising, e-commerce, payment and mobility. 'What's especially encouraging is that Kakao has successfully enhanced operational efficiency,' the company said. Platform revenue rose 10 percent on-year to 1.06 trillion won, driven by a 16 percent increase in business message revenue, a key focus area for the company. Commerce-related services, including KakaoTalk-based gifting and group-buying platform TokDeal, posted a 10 percent revenue increase to 221.2 billion won, with self-purchasing via 'Gift to myself' seeing notable growth. Total transaction volume for commerce in the second quarter rose 6 percent to 2.5 trillion won. Sales from Kakao's other platform segments — which include mobility and payment services — climbed 21 percent on-year to 434.8 billion won. The mobility division saw growth driven by parking and express delivery services, while Kakao Pay benefited from strong performance in both financial and platform-based services, achieving double-digit revenue growth. On the contrary, portal business revenue dropped 11 percent on-year to 78.3 billion won. The content segment saw a 7 percent decline in revenue, totaling 973.1 billion won. Gaming revenue fell, but music and story content posted slight gains, each rising 1 percent to 517.5 billion won and 218.7 billion won, respectively.
