US Treasury Secretary Sees 'Path' to Remove 25% Tariff Imposed on India for Buying Russian Oil

PTI, NEW YORK, JAN 24: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there is a "path" to remove the 25% tariffs imposed on India for buying Russian oil, noting that such purchases by Delhi from Moscow have "collapsed". United States President Donald Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on India, including 25% for its purchases of Russian oil, leading to a strain in the bilateral ties between the two countries.

Bessent on Friday defined the sanctions imposed on India as a "success". "We put 25% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. And the Indian purchases by their refineries of Russian oil have collapsed. So that is a success. The tariffs are still on. The 25% Russian oil tariffs are still on," Bessent said in an interview with Politico. "I would imagine that there is a path to take them off. So that's a check and a huge success," he added.

Bessent also criticised Europe for not imposing tariffs on India. "Our virtue-signalling European allies refused to do it (impose tariffs) because they wanted to sign this big trade deal with India," he said.

The bureaucrat accused India of importing and refining more oil from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. "Before the Ukraine invasion, approximately two per cent or three per cent of Indian oil that went into their refineries came from Russia. The oil was sanctioned. It got deeply discounted and moved up into the high teens—17, 18, 19 per cent was being refined. Huge profits from the refiners," he said.

He accused Europe of funding Russia's war by purchasing the oil refined in India. "But in the ultimate act of irony and stupidity, guess who was buying the refined products from the Indian refineries made from Russian oil? The Europeans. They... are financing the war against themselves," he added.

When asked if he called the Europeans "stupid", Bessent said: "I said there was an act of stupidity." India and the EU are likely to announce the closure of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) soon. India had described the US action as "unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable" while maintaining that its energy policy is guided by its own national interest. India fell to third place among buyers of Russian fossil fuels in December, after Reliance Industries and state-owned refiners sharply reduced their crude oil imports, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).