India thought it had found clear waters. Initial U.S. and European hand-wringing over New Delhi’s continued purchases of Russian oil despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave way to a grudging but quiet acceptance of geopolitical realities.
But that was then, and this is now. That was under former U.S. President Joe Biden, who saw building ties with India as more important than cutting off a major lifeline for Russia’s economy. This is President Donald Trump, who has gone from admiration to exasperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is willing to use trade as a weapon against pretty much anyone, and most importantly, has a complete disregard for norms and precedent—recent or otherwise.
All of that is exemplified in Trump acolyte Sen. Lindsey Graham’s latest threat to punish India, Brazil, and China for continuing to buy Russian oil by slapping additional tariffs on them. Graham made the threat in a Fox News interview on Sunday, saying that Trump would put a “100 percent tariff” on those countries.
“Here’s what I would tell China, India, and Brazil: If you keep buying cheap Russian oil to allow this war to continue, we’re going to tariff the hell out of you and we’re going to crush your economy, because what you’re doing is blood money,” he said.
Graham’s comments came a few days after a similarly blunt, albeit somewhat less hyperbolic, statement from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Washington last week. “If you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you’re the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard,” Rutte said after meeting with some U.S. lawmakers.
Trump first floated the 100 percent secondary tariffs earlier this month, saying they would come as a consequence of Putin failing to meet Trump’s 50-day deadline to reach a peace deal in Ukraine (that deadline expires in early September).
But India doesn’t seem to be swayed by the threats.
“Securing energy needs of our people is understandably an overriding priority for us. In this endeavor, we are guided by what is there on offer in the markets, as also by the prevailing global circumstances,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a briefing last week when asked about Rutte’s comments. “We would particularly caution against any double standards on the matter.”
It’s a similarly defiant stance that New Delhi showed to the United States and Europe when the Ukraine war first broke out three years ago and one that it has remained consistent on, with Biden and European leaders eventually backing down—in part because they saw India as a critical counterweight to a rising China.
“The challenge that India is going to face is that this is an administration whose global priorities are not just China,” said Aparna Pande, a research fellow on India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C. Pande cited Trump’s simultaneous efforts to end the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. “The president wants to get out of every place but has been unable to find that lever which will persuade President Putin,” she said.
Targeting India’s oil imports would be a significant lever to pull—Russia has become India’s largest oil supplier since the war began and accounted for 35 percent of its total imports in the first six months of this year, according to data reported by Reuters. India’s petroleum minister, meanwhile, said he was “not worried at all” about the prospect of Western sanctions, estimating at an event in New Delhi that India had diversified its oil supply to procure from around 40 different countries. “If something happens, we will deal with it,” he said.
Trump, Graham, and Rutte’s other two targets—Brazil and China—have also been the subject of the U.S. president’s frequent ire, individually as well as collectively through the BRICS multilateral grouping. And all three countries are in the midst of often tortuous negotiations over trade, attempting to arrive at deals to avoid the worst of Trump’s sweeping global tariffs. Negotiations with Brazil are not going well—Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva referred to tariffs as “unacceptable blackmail” and said Trump was not elected “to be emperor of the world”—and tensions with China remain ever-present despite a partial trade truce last month.
Trump has sounded more positive about the possibility of a trade deal with India, but his growing frustration with Putin could impact their ongoing negotiations.
“This administration may use sanctions just as it uses tariffs—to force compliance by a country. That will have an impact on India, even if they don’t want to hurt India,” Pande said. “What levers does India have, and what wiggle room does India have? Very limited.”
And while New Delhi has shown an ability to navigate tricky geopolitical situations in the past, Pande said it will require “a lot of nuance and deft diplomacy” this time around. On the other hand, the challenge posed by Trump’s unpredictability could just as easily turn into an advantage.
“It is equally likely that the tariff and trade negotiations go so well that the president is then willing to ignore and give India a special-case provision,” she said. “India will have to deal with whatever is thrown India’s way.”