In what could be called the USA’s yet another move to damage its close ties with India, President Donald Trump announced that India would pay a 25% tariff and a ‘penalty’ for buying Russian oil. Trump also expressed his frustration over India being a top buyer of Russian military equipment and energy.
Taking to Truth Social, Donald Trump posted, “Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country. Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE – ALL THINGS NOT GOOD! INDIA WILL THEREFORE BE PAYING A TARIFF OF 25%, PLUS A PENALTY FOR THE ABOVE, STARTING ON AUGUST 1st. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. MAGA!”
Trump’s move against India comes at a time when the two countries are negotiating a major trade deal. A deal that Trump has repeatedly claimed to have been the reason why India halted Operation Sindoor in May in the aftermath of Pakistan-backed jihadist terror attack in Pahalgam in April this year.
Ironically, Trump never forgets to call India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi his and the USA’s ‘friend’ every time he hyphenates India, the world’s fourth-largest economy and the failed state of Pakistan, which literally breathes on an IMF loan ventilator. Trump makes tall claims of using trade deals as leverage to stop the India-Pakistan conflict; however, the loudmouth US President has failed to strike a deal with India till now.
It must be recalled that after four days of India’s total dominance against Pakistan, with destruction of numerous Pakistan jihadist terror camps, elimination of several terrorists, and significant damage to 11 Pakistani airbases, Pakistan requested India for a ceasefire through military channels. While India has maintained that this was a bilateral decision taken after Pakistan’s DGMO requested his Indian counterpart to stop the conflict, with no third-party mediation, Trump has persistently, almost 30 times, had boasted ‘I stopped the India-Pakistan war with trade’.
President Trump publicly made these claims at the NATO meeting, a US-Saudi investment forum, press interactions and multiple times on Truth Social. Besides, Trump recycles his ‘I stopped the India-Pakistan war’ rhetoric every time a military conflict arises between two countries in any part of the world. And yet, the wannabe Nobel Peace Prize winner has not been able to turn his trade deal prospect into a reality; rather, his continuous anti-India rhetoric inadvertently confirms that the US President has been lying all this while about stopping the war, let alone leveraging the prospect of a trade deal with India. Clearly, either Donald Trump is outright delusional or his staff is feeding him lies.
As of 31st July 2025, no trade deal has been finalised between India and the US. Forget the trade deal, the US President is trying to ‘punish’ India for buying Russian oil, energy and weaponry, while Russia is engaged in a war with NATO and US-backed Ukraine by slapping tariffs and penalties.
The timing of the announcement shows that while the US wants this move to be seen as its stern action against India for its massive trade engagement with Russia, it is actually a testament to India’s refusal to surrender to Washington’s coercive tactics. Negotiations were ongoing, and a waiver could have been on the cards had India agreed to allow unrestricted access to U.S. agricultural products and dilute its protective framework for domestic industries. India, however, upholding its interests, did not.
It seems like Trump, being a businessman himself, thinks that the United States is a massive firm and he is the CEO of the company. However delusional the idea may be, Trump’s rhetoric against the BRICS, status of dollar, and supposed activities of several countries against ‘US interests’, suggests that he expects the whole world function as vassals or employees of the US. He may think everyone works for American interests, bolster the US economy and in return, he would placate the other countries by handing them small rewards just as an owner throws bones to his dog. However, Trump needs to wake up and smell the coffee. This is a multi-polar world where sovereign nations make decisions based on the interests of their country and people, not as per the whims of a bully.
Recently, the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed the Parliament that Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t have a conversation with US President Donald Trump between April 22 (the Pahalgam attack) and June 17 (the ceasefire), and at no stage was there any link between trade and the Indo-Pak conflict. Even PM Modi had told the Lok Sabha that no foreign leader had asked India to halt Operation Sindoor. India paused the military action against Pakistan because Pakistani military begged India.
Not to forget, the Indian government has stated that Operation Sindoor is still ongoing, meanwhile, India has also carried out Operation Mahadev to eliminate the perpetrators of Pahalgam, two of whom were confirmed Pakistani Islamic terrorists. Thus, no trade, no talks and no unhinged rants by any foreign leader can deter India from its fight against terrorism, particularly, the Pakistan-sponsored cross-border Jihad.
Probably, India’s loud and clear statement that no foreign leader, not even the self-declared ‘ceasefire specialist’, mediated ceasefire between India and Pakistan, has irked Trump, reflecting in his sudden tariff and ‘penalty’ imposition against his ‘friend’ India. Trump’s rhetoric and actions against a key ally like India remind one of the famous quote often attributed to Henry Kissinger: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
The fact that India has repeatedly denied the role of any foreign leader and any trade deal offer for halting Operation Sindoor, and Trump’s intransigence about having brokered Indo-Pak ceasefire, suggests that either Trump has grown delusional in his desperation for a Nobel Peace prize or is being fed lies by his staff. Whatever the case may be, the tariff tirade may be a momentary blow to India, but it actually harms the US more in the long term.
Trump’s communication style is characterised by hyperbole, self-aggrandisement as if the world owes him a debt, and a knack for claiming credit for events he had little to do with. While Trump boasts of being a decisive peacemaker in the Indo-Pak conflict and leveraging the prospect of a trade deal, if trade alone could stop wars, his trade offers would have ended the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Despite Trump’s earlier claims of ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict within hours, the two countries continue to fight, rendering Trump’s ‘trade stops wars’ assertion as real as his poll promise of releasing the Epstein Files.
President Trump’s delusion and hypocrisy stretch beyond measures when he makes the audacious attempt at ‘punishing’ India with tariffs and penalties for trade ties with Russia, while the US itself continues to do trade with the country.
While the US may have cut its Russian crude oil imports from Russia due to sanctions, it continues to trade with Russia in various sectors, with top US imports of Russian goods being fertilisers, non-ferrous metals like palladium and aluminium, totaling $876.5 million in imports in 2024 and inorganic chemicals contributing over $683 million to 2024 import totals. Reports say that in 2024 alone, the United States imported $3.27 billion worth of goods from Russia.
The US government’s own data indicates that U.S. exports in goods to Russia fell to $528.3 million in 2024, while imports were worth an amount phenomenally higher. In the year 2023, the U.S. exports to Russia stood at around $598.8 million. Despite Russia enjoying a massive surplus and being involved in war with Ukraine, there was never really a hiatus in the Russia-US trade.
Amusing, isn’t it? President Trump wants to ‘punish’ other countries for having trade ties with Russia, while his own country continues to trade with Russia, even as President Putin does not heed Trump’s ‘end the war with Ukraine and let’s do trade’ offers. If the US itself prioritises its domestic requirements and interests and imports Russian goods, why must India not do the same? Russia has been India’s traditional, loyal and reliable defence and trade partner. It’s not that India does not have any defence ties with America; however, if Trump expects India to choose subservience over its strategic autonomy and sovereignty, then that’s not going to happen.
Even if we assume that in the coming months, the US and India will end up signing a trade deal, which would be possible only when India’s interests are not undermined, the value of Trump’s 25% tariff and ‘penalty’ would be reduced to a joke. For now, these tariffs, a lack of trade deal and his rhetoric calling India, the world’s third-largest economy, a “dead economy” suggest that India has shattered Trump’s delusion of not only having brokered peace between India and Pakistan, but also that trade alone can end wars.
