Amid mounting pressure from US President Donald Trump over India's purchase of Russian oil — and New Delhi's firm pushback — a 2024 video of a former US Ambassador to India has exposed Washington's contradictory stance.
In a video that has resurfaced on the internet, Eric Garcetti suggested that India bought discounted Russian oil (at a price cap) at the behest of US as part of a broader policy design to prevent energy prices from going up.
“They bought Russian oil because we wanted somebody to buy Russian oil at a price cap; that was not a violation. It was actually the design of the policy because, as a commodity, we didn’t want the oil prices going up, and they fulfilled that," Garcetti, who was then a serving ambassador, had said.
Even the Indian government had confirmed this earlier when Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri told CNBC in July that India's purchase of Russian oil helped keep global prices in check. He said that the US itself had encouraged it.
“If people or countries had stopped buying at that stage, the price of oil would have gone up to 130 dollars a barrel. That was a situation in which we were advised, including by our friends in the United States, to please buy Russian oil, but within the price cap," Puri had said.
India faced some heat from US and its western oil for purchase of Russian oil in the early days of the Ukraine invasion. However, by the second year of the war, it appeared that India had managed to convince American and European allies that its expanded purchase of cheap Russian oil — at a price cap imposed by the European Union and Group of 7 — was good for keeping the prices in check, as per a report in The New York Times.
The report said that last year, senior officials from the US Treasury Department visited India and lauded New Delhi for sticking to the formula — "keep Russian oil flowing into the global supply but at a cheap enough price that it would shrink Russia’s revenue."
In fact, in 2022, then US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that US was “happy for India to continue buying as much Russian oil as it wants, including at prices above a G7-imposed price cap mechanism, if it steers clear of Western insurance, finance and maritime services bound by the cap.”
The statements by top US officials are now being cited to call out Trump for ramping up pressure on India over its energy ties with Russia. The rhetoric by the US President is being seen as a pressure tactic amid ongoing trade negotiations between New Delhi and Washington.
Trump has already announced steep 25% tariffs on India along with a penalty and has since targeted New Delhi repeatedly for its close ties with Moscow.
India has refused to give in to pressure from the US President and signaled that it would continue to buy Russian oil.
In a strongly-worded and hard-hitting statement released on Monday, the external affairs ministry said that pointed out the US double standards in targeting India on the issue and said both the US and the EU are continuing their trade relations with Russia.
"Where the US is concerned, it continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilizers as well as chemicals," it added. "In this background, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable. Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security."
Earlier, Trump said his administration will substantially raise tariffs on India. "India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian oil, they are then, for much of the oil purchased, selling it on the open market for big profits," he said in a social media post.
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