White House Calls India Tariff “Sanctions", But Oil Import Argument Raises Hypocrisy Charge

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that President Donald Trump had imposed "sanctions" on India as part of a strategy to indirectly pressure Russia to stop the war in Ukraine, India Today reported.

Leavitt told reporters that Trump had doubled India's tariff rate to 50 per cent — adding a 25 per cent levy on top of the existing 25 per cent, stressing that the measures are designed to squeeze Moscow by targeting nations that continue to maintain economic ties with Russia.

"The president has put tremendous public pressure to bring this war to a close. He's taken actions, as you’ve seen, sanctions on India and other actions as well," adding that the intent was to apply "secondary pressure" on Moscow.

"He has scoffed at the ideas of others that have been raised that we should wait another month before any meeting takes place. The president wants to move, and he wants to bring this war to an end as quickly as possible," she added.

This comes only days after Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House, where both leaders signaled movement toward possible trilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Leavitt reiterated that Trump is focused on securing a swift conclusion to the Ukraine conflict.

She also repeated Trump’s earlier claim that he had helped settle the India-Pakistan conflict by leveraging trade and sanctions, a statement India has repeatedly dismissed.

"(For) India and Pakistan (conflict), he (Trump) used trade in a very powerful way as leverage to bring that conflict to an end," Leavitt told reporters.

India, however, has consistently rejected any third-party role in its ceasefire with Pakistan, maintaining that no foreign power influenced its decision to halt military operations.

Earlier, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday accused India of profiteering from cheap Russian oil imports during the war in Ukraine, describing the practice as “arbitrage” and condemning it as unacceptable.

Trump is threatening what he calls "secondary tariffs" on Russian oil buyers like India to pressure the Kremlin to reach a negotiated settlement with Ukraine.

However, the US has not imposed any sanctions on China over its imports of Russian crude.

When asked about China’s imports, Bessent suggested that Beijing’s imports were less egregious in the eyes of the Trump administration because it was also a major buyer before Russia invaded Ukraine.

However, Bessent's argument was refuted by Bob McNally, a former advisor to US President George W Bush, who said that India actually started purchasing Russian oil in a major way at the behest of the US.

The Biden administration had asked India to accept Russian crude as other countries imposed bans in order to prevent a major oil price spike after the invasion of Ukraine that would result in high gasoline prices in the US, McNally told CNBC.

“India played a key role in the price cap sanction mechanism designed by the U.S. and its European allies to ensure Russian oil still flowed while trying to crimp the revenue Moscow earned,” McNally was quoted as saying by CNBC.

Also Read: China Removing Export Curbs On Fertilizers, Rare Earths And Tunnel Boring Machines To India: Report