White House business advisor Peter Navaro criticized India on the purchase of Russian oil, called the country “the oil money laundromet for the Kremlin” and accused New Delhi of using the US dollar, which “Ukrainian people died.”
In a detailed Twitter thread posted on Thursday, Navaro underlined that he said “India-Russia Oil Mathematics”, “Indian refiner, with his silent Russian partners, refined and flipped black-marketed oil for big profits on the international market, when Russia works hard to fund their war on Ukrain.”
“India’s large oil lobby has converted the world’s largest democracy into a large -scale refinery hub and oil money laundromet for the Kremlin,” Navarro wrote, seeing that the import of Russian oil is less than 1% to more than 1% before the Ukraine invasion – more than 1.5 million barrels daily.
Navaro expanded its criticism beyond energy trade, accusing India of “strategic freelioding”, which continued to buy Russian weapons, while American firms were sought to transfer sensitive military technology to American firms and manufacture plants in India.
He said, “Biden Admin saw another way in this madness to a large extent. President Trump is facing it. A 50% tariff – 25% for unfair trade and 25% for national security – a direct response,” he wrote.
The American Jewish Committee, which is one of the oldest and most influential Jewish advocacy organizations in the US, issued a rare defense of India, saying it was “mysterious” and “deeply disturbed” from the attacks of American authorities.
AJC is mysterious from the chorus of attacks on India by US authorities, and is deeply upset – as a scary allegation of the latest White House advisor that Russia’s cruel aggression against Ukraine is ‘Modi’s war,’ the committee said on X.
“We regret the dependence of India’s energy on Russian oil-but India is not responsible for Putin’s war crimes, a sister is a democracy and the United States is an important strategic partner of the United States, and is an important role to play in the great power competition. It is time to reset this important relationship.”
Increasing rhetoric from Navaro has criticized former Republican leaders, including John Bolton, Nikki Haley and Kondoleza Rice, who warned that stress is at risk of damaging strategic partnership.
Democratic representatives, including Suhas Subramaniam, Sydney Kamalagar-Dov and Amy Bera, have also questioned Trump’s handling relations with India.
