Taking his oft-repeated allegations against India to the floor of the UN General Assembly, U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused India and China of being “primary funders” of the Russian war in Ukraine. He claimed again that he stopped the India-Pakistan conflict in May.
Despite accusations against multiple countries and the fact that China imports more Russian energy than India, the U.S. has singled out India by imposing “penalty tariffs” of 25%, effectively doubling the tariffs on Indian goods.
“China and India are primary funders of war by continuing to purchase Russian oil,” Mr. Trump said in an hour-long speech at the start of the high-level week at the UN. “[It is] inexcusable that even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products,” he added.
It was his first address to the UNGA in his second term in office.
‘Powerful tariffs’
He said that if Russia was not ready to make a ceasefire deal, then the U.S. “is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs which would stop the bloodshed... but for those tariffs to be effective, European nations would have to join the U.S. in adopting the exact same measures”.
The European Union, which announced its 19th round of sanctions last week, has not imposed tariffs on India as the U.S. has for Russian oil purchases, but has sanctioned a number of Indian entities, including the Rosneft-controlled Nayara energy, which refines a large proportion of the Russian oil imported.
Mr. Trump also repeated the claim that he intervened to ensure a ceasefire between India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor in May. India has consistently denied the claim.
‘Ended seven wars’
Mr. Trump counted the India-Pakistan conflict among the “seven wars” he ended, claiming that “in all cases they were raging with countless, thousands of people being killed”.
“No President or Prime Minister, and for that matter, no other country has done anything close to that and I did it in just seven months,” Mr. Trump said, enumerating the conflicts between “Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, Congo and Rwanda… Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan”.
The government did not respond immediately to Mr. Trump’s speech.In August, the External Affairs Ministry had issued a statement refuting the U.S.’s characterisation of India’s Russian oil purchases, pointing out that other countries also bought the oil, and that the U.S. continued trade in other items, including critical minerals, with Russia.
