Trump lifts tariff, says India has aligned with US foreign, security policy, will stop buying Russian oil

India has taken significant steps to align sufficiently with the United States on national security, foreign policy and economic matters, President Donald Trump has stated, even as he put in writing what he has been claiming for months – that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has “committed to stop directly and indirectly importing” oil from Russia.

He has also noted that New Delhi has committed to a framework with Washington, D.C., to expand defence cooperation over the next 10 years and will import energy products from the US.

New Delhi continued to avoid confirming or denying the US president’s claim about India’s commitment to stop buying oil from Russia, but reiterated that diversifying sourcing in keeping with objective market conditions and evolving international dynamics was at the core of its strategy to ensure energy security for its 1.4 billion people. Moscow too recently noted that it had no reason to believe that India had reconsidered its approach on the purchase of hydrocarbons from Russia.

Trump issued an executive order in Washington, D.C., late on Friday, withdrawing the 25 per cent punitive tariff he had imposed in August 2025 on India’s exports to the US to persuade Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in New Delhi to stop importing crude oil from Russia. He, however, also warned that the tariff might be reimposed if India restarted importing oil from Russia in the future.

Washington, D.C., moved to rescind the punitive tariff on India’s exports to the US on a day when the two sides issued a joint statement announcing that they had reached a framework for an interim agreement on “reciprocal, mutually beneficial trade”.

The withdrawal of the punitive tariff came into effect on Saturday.

Trump had, on August 6, 2025, determined that the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation had continued to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US. To deal with the threat, he had determined that it would be necessary and appropriate to impose an additional ad valorem rate of duty of 25 per cent on imports of articles of India, which, at that time, had been directly or indirectly importing oil from Russia.

“India has committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil, has represented that it will purchase United States energy products from the United States, and has recently committed to a framework with the United States to expand defence cooperation over the next 10 years,” the US president claimed in his latest executive order, taking note of additional information and recommendations he had received from the senior officials of his administration.

“I have determined that India has taken significant steps to address the national emergency described in Executive Order 14066 (one that was issued in August 2025) and to align sufficiently with the United States on national security, foreign policy, and economic matters,” noted Trump.

He asked US Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of State, and Secretary of the Treasury to monitor if India resumed oil purchases from Russia, and, if it did so, to recommend, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, the US Trade Representative, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Assistant to the President and Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing, whether and to what extent he should take additional action, including whether he should reimpose the 25% duty on imports from India.

India’s traditional dependence on Russia for military hardware has been an irritant in its relations with the US.

Trump, however, noted in its latest executive order that India had recently committed to a framework with the US to expand defence cooperation over the next 10 years.

Trump and his aides had earlier accused India of helping President Vladimir Putin carry on the war in Ukraine by continuing to import oil from Russia. They had alleged that India had circumvented the sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union on Russia after it had launched the war against Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s share in India’s total crude oil imports rose from less than 2 per cent before the launch of its war in Ukraine in 2022 to around 40 per cent by 2023–24. But imports from Russia came down from over 2 million barrels per day in June 2025 to 1.6 million barrels per day in September 2025. The imports saw a rebound in October 2025 and the first half of November 2025, but fell by nearly 30 per cent after the stringent US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil of Russia came into effect.

India purchased crude oil worth $2.7 billion in December 2025, marking the lowest monthly intake since February 2025.

The US president, however, had repeatedly claimed over the past few months that he had succeeded in persuading the prime minister of India to slash oil imports from Russia. He had also claimed recently that Washington, D.C., and New Delhi already had a deal for India to buy oil from Venezuela, now under the control of the United States, instead of purchasing from Iran.