It's 'blood money': Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro's new rant on India's purchases of Russian oil

New York: US President Donald Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro on Monday termed India's purchases of Russian oil as "blood money" and said Delhi didn’t buy oil from Moscow in large quantities before the Ukraine conflict.

Using an expletive in his post on X, Navarro said, "Fact: India didn't buy Russian oil in large quantities before Russia invaded Ukraine. It's blood money and people are dying."

Last week, Navarro, White House's Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing, had said in a post that “India highest tariffs costs US jobs. India buys Russian oil purely to profit/Revenues feed Russia war machine. Ukrainians/Russians die. US taxpayers shell out more. India can't handle truth/spins.”

When a community note was added to Navarro’s post by X, he slammed Elon Musk, saying the X billionaire owner is “letting propaganda into people's posts. That crap note below is just that. Crap. India buys Russia oil solely to profiteer. It didn't buy any before Russia invaded Ukraine. Indian govt spin machine moving high tilt. Stop killing Ukrainians. Stop taking American jobs.”

X said that “Community Notes on X is a crowd-sourced program where X users can add context, fact-checks to potentially misleading posts. Contributors write notes, which are then rated by other contributors with diverse viewpoints.” The community note included links to news reports on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments, made during his joint press conference with Trump in Alaska last month, that trade between Washington and Moscow grew since the Republican leader’s second term in the White House. 

In a rant, Navarro said, “Should X put up posts like one below where foreign interests masquerade as objective observers and interfere with domestic US economics and politics?  “On earlier post, you can see Indian special interests trying to interfere with domestic dialogue with lies about India buying Russian oil. Should X present this crap as comments from "diverse viewpoints”? One of the community notes on Navarro’s post said that his remark that “Brahmins are profiteering” is not only baseless but also a hypocritical attempt to meddle in India’s internal affairs and spread divisive narratives.

Navarro had said that “Brahmins” are profiteering at the expense of the Indian people and it needs to stop.

The relations between New Delhi and Washington are on a downturn after Trump doubled tariffs on Indian goods to a whopping 50 per cent, including a 25 per cent additional duty for India's purchase of Russian crude oil.

India described the US action as "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable" and even wondered why it had been singled out for the punitive action. Surprisingly, the US has not imposed any punitive measures on China, the largest importer of Russian crude oil.

Defending its purchase of Russian crude oil, India has been maintaining that its energy procurement is driven by national interest and market dynamics.

India turned to purchasing Russian oil sold at a discount after Western countries imposed sanctions on Moscow and shunned its supplies over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.