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The Hindu
3 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Russia is not Iran, India can't cancel oil imports on U.S. demand: experts
India cannot cancel oil imports from Russia as it did six years ago with Iran and Venezuela, given the difference in the scale and importance of the relationship, said experts, warning that the U.S.'s actions against India were damaging the relationship built over decades. In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump had in his first term, demanded that India 'zero out' its oil imports from Iran and Venezuela. India had eventually complied with the demand before the deadline in May 2019. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump signed an executive order levying a 25% penalty on top of 25% tariffs on Indian goods, unless India cut energy purchases from Russia, which currently make up more than 35% of its oil imports. The penalty would kick in by August 27 unless Russia stops the war in Ukraine. The threat is expected to add pressure on both India and Russia ahead of a meeting between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir Putin next week, and the upcoming visit by Mr. Putin to India for the annual summit with Mr. Modi. 'At the global level, Russia is not Iran,' former Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Arun Singh told The Hindu in an interview. 'We want Russia, as one of the major powers in the international context, to be an important partner of India, and there's a memory in India of Russia in the past having provided political support [and] ...defence technology that nobody else was willing to provide,' he added, also warning that if India were to cave in to Mr. Trump's demands, this would only increase the U.S.'s appetite to demand more concessions from India. According to scholar Brahma Chellaney, the U.S. move on Russian oil is a cover to strong-arm India into accepting trading terms the U.S. wants, including market access for agricultural products. '[Mr.] Trump is weaponising Russian oil purchases to force a largely one-sided trade deal on India,' said Mr. Chellaney, who is a Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. He pointed out that technically, the U.S. has not sanctioned Russian oil, nor has it subscribed to the European Union's latest price cap on it. Mr. Trump had also not penalised China, which is the world's largest importer of Russian oil. 'Cutting Indian purchases of Russian oil is unlikely to make him back off. He wants a trade deal on his terms,' Mr. Chellaney added. Until recently, India imported about 2 million barrels a day, and is the second largest importer of Russian oil. Mr. Singh pointed to the past 25 years as a period of building trust between the two countries, and a steady improvement in relations after the previous era, where India had seen the U.S. as a 'coercive and an unreliable partner' for its backing of Pakistan, the 1971 Bangladesh War intervention, and the 1998 sanctions on India for its nuclear tests. Since 2008, after the U.S. helped India win exemptions at the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group for doing nuclear trade, he said this perception seriously changed. He also said that the U.S. had supplied drones and winter clothing to support Indian forces during the India-China stand-off at the Line of Actual Control at 'short notice'. 'But because of what President Trump has done in India, there's a resurrection of the old and bitter memories of the U.S.,' Mr. Singh who is a Senior Fellow at Delhi-based Carnegie India and a Professor at Ashoka University. 'So President Trump and the U.S. may feel that they are putting some penalties on India, high tariffs, I would say that they are putting high tariffs and penalties, less on India, and more on the U.S.-India relationship. It will take some time for the relationship to come out from this shock that has been generated', he added.
Nikkei Asia
12-05-2025
- Business
- Nikkei Asia
Trump's China reset shakes up global geopolitics
Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the independent New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including "Water: Asia's New Battleground" (Georgetown University Press), which won the Bernard Schwartz Book Award. U.S. President Donald Trump's most consequential legacy may be his strategic pivot to confront China. For decades, successive American administrations pursued a policy of integrating China into the global economy, believing that economic liberalization would gradually lead to political reform. That gamble failed. Trump, during his first term, was the first U.S. president to openly acknowledge this failure and recalibrate policy accordingly.
