President Donald Trump said on Monday that India will face a “substantially” higher tariff as it continues to purchase Russian oil, while the Trump administration threatens secondary tariffs on nations doing business with Moscow.
Indian officials said over the weekend that the country had no plans to prohibit oil companies from importing Russian oil despite Trump’s threats. India’s Russian oil purchases rose from 68,000 barrels per day to more than 1.1 million barrels per day in 2022 as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, according to the Associated Press.
“India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits. They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”
Trump’s comments on India come just days after he announced that the United States would hit the South Asian country with a 25% tariff as part of his delayed “Liberation Day” tariff rollout. U.S. imports from India include diamonds, jewelry, textiles, refined petroleum, and pharmaceuticals. In 2024, India exported $87 billion worth of goods to the United States.
The president has ramped up pressure on Russia to bring an end to the war with Ukraine that has dragged on for more than three years. Last month, Trump threatened to hit Russia with 100% secondary tariffs. Trump did not say on Monday whether his tariff increase on India would be the 100% rate that he previously threatened for countries purchasing Russian oil.
Trump initially set a 50-day deadline for Russia to end the fighting before it faced secondary tariffs, but last week, he shortened that deadline to 10 to 12 days, saying, “There’s no reason in waiting. We just don’t see any progress being made.”
“We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city, like Kyiv, and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street,” Trump added. “And I said, ‘That’s not the way to do it.’”
