India has already started winding down purchases of Russian energy products: USTR

New York/Washington: India has already started “winding down” its purchases of Russian oil, and New Delhi is “ramping back up” buying energy from America and other sources, United States Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer said on Tuesday.

In a call between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, India and the US reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal trade and reaffirmed their commitment to broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations.

Trump also agreed to remove the punitive 25 per cent tariff on imports from India in “recognition of India’s commitment to stop purchasing” Russian oil.

While responding to a question in an interview with Fox Business, whether India is really going to shift away from buying Russian oil, Greer said: “The short answer is yes. They've already started winding down their purchases of Russian energy products. They've started ramping back up purchases of American energy and energy from other sources.”  Greer said the US has talked to India about oil purchases from Venezuela and added that before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, “the Indians did not really procure Russian oil. It's really an artefact of the Russia-Ukraine war and the discounted oil they could get." He said that India was refining oil from Russia and selling it to Europeans.

"I mean, Europe and India essentially were underwriting Russia's war in Ukraine,” he added.

He said that India “is really committed. They've already started expanding some of their commitments with respect to purchases.

Greer said that India has taken down some digital services taxes and is moving tariffs down.  “This is going to be a really important deal, and it's going to reverberate for many years to come,” he added.

When asked about corporate America’s worries about China and how it is looking for an off-ramp in terms of manufacturing, and whether India can provide that base for supply chains being taken out of China.

Greer said, “They have a lot of folks there. They have manufacturing capacity. Of course, we want to make sure that American manufacturing is first and foremost. The American worker is first, but certainly to the extent we're going to import from other countries, India can be a good source as long as it's balanced and it's fair.”  Under the agreement, India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.