White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who has been criticising New Delhi for purchasing crude oil from Russia, has made another bizarre allegation amid India's thaw with China, saying it is "getting in bed with authoritarians”.
Peter Navarro expressed his frustration over India's growing relations with Moscow and Beijing, whom he labelled as "authoritarians."
“India, you are getting in bed with authoritarians. China invaded Aksai Chin and all your territory. They are not your friends. And Russia? Come on!” Peter Navarro told Bloomberg Television in an interview on Wednesday.
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Aksai Chin, close to the Galwan Valley, is controlled by China, but India asserts Aksai Chin as an integral part of its territory based on historical claims and past treaties.
PM Modi to visit China
{{/usCountry}}Aksai Chin, close to the Galwan Valley, is controlled by China, but India asserts Aksai Chin as an integral part of its territory based on historical claims and past treaties.
PM Modi to visit China
{{/usCountry}}Navarro's comments come days before PM Narendra Modi's visit to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on August 31 and September 1. This is Modi's first visit to China since 2018. A thaw began last October when Modi met with Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.
Ukraine conflict is 'Modi’s war': Navarro
In the same interview, Navarro alleged that the Ukraine conflict is “Modi’s war”, saying the “road to peace” runs partly “right through New Delhi”.
Navarro, President Donald Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing, claimed that “India is helping feed the Russian war machine”.
“Everybody in America loses because of what India is doing. The consumers and businesses and everything lose, and workers lose because India's high tariffs cost us jobs and factories and income and higher wages, and then the taxpayers lose, because we got to fund Modi's war,” Navarro said.
When asked by the host if he meant “Putin’s war”, Navarro reiterated that it is “Modi’s war”.
“I mean Modi's war, because the road to peace runs, in part, through New Delhi,” he added.
‘India can get 25 per cent off tomorrow if…’: Navarro
His fresh attack comes even as Trump has imposed an additional 25 per cent tariffs on India for its purchases of Russian oil, levies that came into effect from Wednesday, bringing the total duties slapped on India to 50 per cent.
Navarro claimed it is “real easy” for the 25 per cent additional tariffs imposed on India to go away, and for that New Delhi has to stop buying Russian oil.
“India can get 25 per cent off tomorrow if it stops buying Russian oil and helping to feed their war machine,” Navarro said in the interview.
Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a great leader”, Navarro said he was puzzled as “this is a mature democracy with intelligent people running it, and they look us bald-faced in the eye on the tariff part and say, ‘we don't have the highest tariffs in the world’, when, in fact, they do”.
“There's no dispute about that. If you look at the numbers and then they say…, ‘We're not going to stop buying Russian oil’. Now, what does that mean?” Navarro said.
The trade adviser then further alleged that India buys Russian oil at a discount and then Indian refiners, in partnership with Russian refiners, sell it at a premium to the rest of the world.
“Russia uses the money it gets to fund its war machine, kill more Ukrainians. And then the next thing that happens, of course, is Ukraine comes to the US and Europe and says, give us some more money,” Navarro added.
There was no immediate comment from New Delhi on Navarro's statement.
India, however, has called the tariffs imposed by the US “unjustified and unreasonable”.
New Delhi has said like any major economy, it will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.
The trade adviser further said that India is the biggest democracy in the world and it should "act like one" and "not side with the authoritarians".
(With inputs from Bloomberg)