Trump's aide Navarro criticises India again over Russian oil purchases

New York: White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has once again criticised India for continuing to procure Russian oil.

In the last few weeks, Navarro has made a series of attacks on New Delhi for its energy ties with Russia.

"Wow. @elonmusk 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," Navarro said in a post on X on Saturday.

India has been maintaining that its energy procurement is driven by national interest and market dynamics.

Navarro was responding to a community note on his earlier post in which he had claimed that India’s purchase of Russian oil "feeds" the Russian "war machine".

"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," he had said.

The community note described Navarro's claims as "hypocritical".

"India's legal, sovereign purchases of Russian oil for energy security do not violate international law. The US, while pressuring India, continues to import billions in Russian goods, like uranium, exposing a clear double standard," it said.

According to X, community notes aim to create a "better-informed world" by empowering people on the social media platform to "collaboratively add context to potentially misleading posts".

Contributors can leave notes on any post, and if enough contributors from different points of view rate that note as helpful, the note will be publicly shown on a post, it says.

India has rejected as "inaccurate and misleading" Navarro's attack on it for the procurement of Russian crude oil.

Last week, Navarro accused India of being an "oil money laundromat for the Kremlin" and described it as "strategic freeloading" that New Delhi continues to buy Russian weapons while urging American defence firms to transfer sensitive military technologies and set up manufacturing plants in India.

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.