US calls India 'good actor, great partner' to justify waiver to buy oil from Russia for 30 days

New Delhi: President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington, DC has called India a “good actor” and a “great partner” of the United States to explain why it had “temporarily permitted” the South Asian nation to buy oil from Russia amid the turmoil in the global energy market due to the escalating conflict in West Asia.

The White House stated that India had been a good actor and had earlier stopped buying oil from Russia, and that was why the US had decided to grant a 30-day waiver to the country to buy oil already shipped from Russia. Trump’s envoy to New Delhi, Sergio Gor, also said that India had been ‘a great partner’ of the US in maintaining price stability in the international oil market, and it was currently buying oil from Russia as part of that effort.

The US announced the “30-day waiver” for India to allow it to buy oil from Russia last week, just a month after lifting the 25% tariff it had imposed on imports from the South Asian nation to dissuade it from buying oil from the former Soviet Union nation. The move came amid concerns over the widening conflict in West Asia in the aftermath of the attacks launched by Israel and the US on Iran on February 28, and counterattacks by Iran on Israel and the US military bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Trump had claimed on February 6 that he had withdrawn the punitive tariff as India had committed to stop directly and indirectly importing oil from Russia and taken significant steps to align sufficiently with the US on national security, foreign policy and economic matters.

The US president had also warned on February 6 that the punitive tariff might be re-imposed on India if it restarted importing oil from Russia in the future.

Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the national security team of his administration in Washington, D.C., decided to grant the waiver as the US “allies in India” had been good actors, and had previously stopped buying sanctioned oil from Russia, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told a press conference on Tuesday. “So, as we work to appease this temporary gap of oil supply around the world because of the Iranians, we have temporarily permitted them (India) to accept that Russian oil. And this Russian oil was already at sea,” added Leavitt.

The White House press secretary said that the short-term US measure would not provide any significant financial benefit to the government of Russia.

“India has been a great partner in maintaining stable oil prices around the world,” Gor posted on X on Wednesday. “The United States recognises that ongoing purchases of Russian oil are a part of this effort. India is one of the largest consumers and refiners of oil, and it is essential for the United States and India to work hand in hand for market stability for Americans and Indians.”

Washington, D.C., has been accusing India of helping Russia continue the war in Ukraine by buying oil from the former Soviet Union nation, despite sanctions imposed by the US and others in the West.

Trump, however, since October 2025, started claiming that he had succeeded in prodding New Delhi to first slash and then stop buying oil from Russia.

The attacks by the US and Israel on Iran, the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and the counterattacks by Iran on Israel and the US military bases in the Gulf widened the conflict in West Asia over the past few days. As close to half of India’s crude oil imports, nearly 2.5 million barrels per day, as well as a sizeable share of its liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas supplies, are typically transported through the Strait of Hormuz, the security uncertainty around the narrow shipping lane in the Persian Gulf due to the escalating conflict triggered fears about the disruption of energy supply from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to the South Asian country.