President Donald Trump announced that a 25 percent blanket tariff on imports from India will come into effect on Aug. 1, 2025. Trump noted the high tariff rates India maintains on the import of American goods and honed in on India’s close relationship with Russia amidst the war in Ukraine.
Writing on Truth Social, the president noted, “[T]hey [India] 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.”
India has been among the world’s largest purchasers of Russian oil, gas, and military equipment while many other nations have cut their ties to the expansionist Putin regime. In December of 2023, a year and a half after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Indian diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar bragged about having an “all-time high” trade volume with Russia.
This relationship has been crucial to keep the Russian war machine afloat in its assault on Ukraine. The Associated Press reported that India imported 430,000 barrels of Russian oil per day as of May of 2024. By December, that number had reached 500,000.
As the single largest buyer of Russian oil and gas in the world, India did more than bankroll the war alone. Indian refineries purchased Russian crude oil to sell to the rest of the world, allowing Russia to access the world’s markets under the guise of the Indian flag while technically under sanction for their aggression.
India used its status as an officially “neutral” nation to acquire Western artificial intelligence technology and sell it to the Russian government in 2024. By the end of that year, over $95 million in military technology the United States had sought to prevent Russia from acquiring had been sold to Moscow by India. The Biden administration stood supine.
Indians are more likely to blame the West for the invasion of Ukraine than Putin’s Russia. Forty-three percent of Indians see Russia as their nation’s closest ally. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes every opportunity to physically embrace Vladimir Putin and dub him a “dear friend.” While Modi held Putin in his arms during his most recent visit to Moscow, Russian forces bombed Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital.
Despite India’s having stood by Putin when he previously invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, no prior American administration had the will to confront India’s geopolitical collusion with the world’s most expansionist regime.
The crackdown on India may be a sign of things to come. Trump has promised further tariff action against Russia and its trading partners in 10 days if a peace in Ukraine is not reached. These tariff rates on nations that continue to bolster the Russian economy through trade could reach as high as 100 percent and serve as a key negotiating tool to bring Putin to the table, protect Ukrainian sovereignty, and stop the slaughter.
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