LAST UPDATE | 4 Aug 2025

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP threatened today to “substantially” hike US tariffs on goods from India over its purchases of Russian oil – a key source of revenue for Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Trump’s threat has been met with an angry reaction from the Indian government. 

“The targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable,” India Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.

“Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.”

Trump’s heightened pressure on India comes after he signalled fresh sanctions on Moscow if Russia did not make progress by Friday towards a peace deal with Ukraine, more than three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Moscow is anticipating talks with the US leader’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who is expected to meet President Vladimir Putin this week.

Today, Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform that India was “buying massive amounts of Russian Oil” and selling it for “big profits.”

“They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,” Trump added.

“Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA.”

But he did not provide details on what tariff level he had in mind.

For now, an existing 10 percent US tariff on Indian products is expected to rise to 25 percent come Thursday.

Today’s threats against India come after Trump last week ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines in response to what he called “provocative” comments from Russia’s ex-president.

Russia, in its first comments on the deployment, today urged “caution”.

“Russia is very attentive to the topic of nuclear non-proliferation. And we believe that everyone should be very, very cautious with nuclear rhetoric,” the Kremlin’s Peskov said.

The chief of staff to Zelenskyy today backed Trump’s actions.

“The concept of peace through strength works,” Andriy Yermak wrote on social media.

“The moment American nuclear submarines appeared, one Russian drunk — who had just been threatening nuclear war on X – suddenly went silent,” he added.

Trump has previously threatened that new measures could mean “secondary tariffs” targeting Russia’s remaining trade partners, such as China and India. This would further stifle Russia, but would risk significant international disruption.

- © AFP 2025