Trump says India slashed oil imports from Russia to make him happy

President Donald Trump has said that New Delhi slashed oil imports from Russia to make him happy, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aware of the unhappiness of the United States leader over India’s increasing energy purchases from the former Soviet Union nation, even after the launch of its special military operations in Ukraine.

Lindsay Graham, a senator of the US, has also said that New Delhi’s envoy to Washington, D.C., Vinay Kwatra, has told him about India slashing oil imports from Russia. Graham said that Kwatra had requested his help to withdraw the 25% tariff Trump had imposed on India’s exports to the US to dissuade it from purchasing oil from Russia.

Though Trump and Graham boasted of the success of the US in pressing India to slash oil imports from Russia, New Delhi refrained from commenting on the statements made by them.

“They (India) wanted to make me happy, basically. Modi is a very good man. He is a good guy. He knew I was not happy, and it was important to make me happy. They do trade, and we can raise tariffs on them very quickly. It would be very bad for them,” Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One while flying from Florida to Washington, D.C., on Sunday.

He made the comment after Graham, who was also aboard Air Force One, told journalists that the tariffs imposed by the US on India to dissuade it from buying oil from Russia had worked. “So, he (Trump) put a 25% tariff on India for buying Russian oil. I was at the Indian ambassador's house about a month ago, and all he wanted to talk about was how they're buying less Russian oil,” the US Senator said. “Would you tell the President to relieve the tariff?” he quoted Kwatra, India’s ambassador to the US, requesting him. “This stuff (tariffs) works,” Graham, who sponsored the Sanctioning Russia Bill 2025 in the US Congress, added with Trump nodding. “If you want to end this conflict (between Russia and Ukraine), then put pressure on Putin’s (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s) customers.”

The Bill sponsored by Graham in the US Congress seeks to empower the American President to slap up to 500% tariffs on countries like India for buying oil from Russia.

Trump had announced on August 6 an additional 25% tariff – on top of the 25% levied earlier – on India’s exports to the US, in a move to dissuade the South Asian nation from buying oil from Russia. He and his aides had accused India of funding Putin’s war in Ukraine by continuing to buy oil from Russia, defying the sanctions the US and the European Union had imposed on the former Soviet Union nation.

Russia’s share in India’s total crude oil imports rose from less than 2% before the launch of its war in Ukraine in 2022 to around 40% 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 and the first half of November, but fell by nearly 30% after the stringent US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil of Russia came into effect on November 21.

Trump has been claiming that he could persuade India to slash its oil imports from Russia.

New Delhi never officially acknowledged the role of the US sanctions in the decline of India’s imports of oil from Russia, but underlined that its energy import policies included broad-basing and diversifying sources in accordance with market conditions and guided by the objective of safeguarding the interests of consumers in the country.