U.S. President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The reduction of Russian oil is not just in absolute terms, but also in terms of its share in India’s total oil imports. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump‘s order also means a reduced U.S. tariff rate on Japanese cars, from the current 27.5% to 15%. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

India’s exports of petroleum products such as diesel and jet fuel to the U.S. continue to be exempted from the levy of any import duty or tariff, and President Donald Trump has, for now, not indicated the penalty he plans to impose to deter New Delhi’s energy trade with Russia.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump had announced plans to impose a 25% tariff on India, along with an additional penalty, citing concerns over the country’s energy and defence ties with Russia, as well as existing trade barriers.

However, the executive order he signed thereafter only gives effect to the 25% tariff on Indian goods coming to the U.S. Even this has an exclusion list that includes finished pharmaceutical products (tablets, injectables and syrups), active pharmaceutical ingredients, electronics and ICT goods (semiconductors, smartphones, SSDs and computers), and petroleum products (crude oil, LNG, refined fuels, electricity and coal).

The executive order also does not indicate any penalty that is to be levied for Russian trade.

According to official data, India exported 4.86 million tonnes of petroleum products to the U.S. in fiscal year 2024-25 (April 2024 to March 2025) for over $4 billion.

Reliance Industries Ltd is the biggest exporter of fuel to the U.S.

With fuel exports continuing to be on the exemption list, it means business as usual for India and companies like Reliance, analysts said.

Also, a relief would be if no penalty is imposed to punish India for its oil imports from Russia, they said, adding that for now, the U.S. administration has not indicated any penalty. “For now, there is nothing but you never know,” an analyst said.

From just 0.2% before the Russia-Ukraine war to now accounting for 35-40% of total crude imports, India’s reliance on Russian oil has surged — drawing fresh scrutiny with Mr. Trump announcing a penalty on top of a 25% tariff, or tax, on all goods going to the U.S.

India historically bought most of its oil from the Middle East, including Iraq and Saudi Arabia. However, things changed when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

India, the world’s third-largest crude importer after China and the U.S., began snapping up Russian oil that was available at a discount after some in the West shunned it as a means to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

From a market share of just 0.2% in India’s import basket before the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia overtook Iraq and Saudi Arabia to become India’s No.1 supplier, with a share as high as 40% at one point of time.

This month, Russia supplied 36% of all crude oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel, that India imported.

Announcing the imposition of 25% tariff or tax on all Indian goods going to the U.S., Mr. Trump had said New Delhi “always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of energy, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE.” “India will therefore be paying a tariff of 25%, plus a penalty for the above (Russian purchases), starting on August First,” he said in a post on social media.

India bought 68,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Russia in January 2022, according to global real-time data and analytics provider Kpler. That month, Indian imports from Iraq were 1.23 million bpd and 883,000 bpd from Saudi Arabia.

In June 2022, Russia overtook Iraq to become India’s largest oil supplier. That month, it supplied 1.12 million bpd as compared to 993,000 bpd that came from Iraq and 695,000 bpd from Saudi Arabia.

Russian imports peaked to 2.15 million bpd in May 2023 and have varied since then, depending on the discount at which the oil was available. But the volumes never slipped below 1.4 million bpd, which is more than what India was buying from its top supplier Iraq before the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In July, imports from Russia averaged 1.8 million bpd, almost double of 950,000 bpd imports from Iraq. Saudi imports stood at 630,000 bpd, according to Kpler.

After the Ukraine war, Western energy sanctions against Russia pushed it to cut prices for those buyers still willing to purchase its crude.

The discounts on Russia’s flagship Urals crude to Brent — the world’s most well-known benchmark — were as high as $40 per barrel at one point but have been trimmed since to less than $ 3.

G7 countries in December 2022 imposed a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian crude. Under the mechanism, European companies were permitted to transport and insure shipments of Russian oil to third countries as long as it is sold below the capped price — an effort to limit the impact of the sanctions on global oil flows but ensure Russia earns less from the trade.

Last month, the European Union decided to lower the price cap to $47.6 and introduced an automatic and dynamic mechanism for its review in the future. The idea is to keep the cap at 15% lower than the average market price.

In addition to stoking India’s economy, cheap Russian oil gave refiners lucrative business — refining that crude and exporting the products to deficit countries.

These included the European Union, which had banned direct crude oil purchases from Russia.

This month, the European Union decided to ban the import of refined oil produced from Russian crude.

Published – August 02, 2025 12:36 am IST

President Donald Trump’s tariffs will have a major ripple effect on American households, and drastically lower the purchasing power of poor households, as noted by the Congressional Budget Office.

Trump’s tariffs could add an extra $830 tax this year on the average US household as analysed by the nonpartisan nonprofit Tax Foundation.

The president has been threatening tariffs on various countries since his presidential campaign and has said that since January 31, he would impose 25 percent tariffs on goods imported from Mexico and Canada and from February onwards, 10% on imports from China.

“It’s something we’re doing, and we’ll possibly very substantially increase it, or not, we’ll see how it is,” Trump said. “But it’s a lot of money coming to the United States.”

Moreover he has threatened to impose 100% tariffs on BRICS nations including India if they create their own currency and replace the dollar.

However, the foundation found that his proposed tariffs would shrink the economic output of the country by 0.4% and increase taxes by $1.2 trillion between 2025 and 2034. In addition to that, the tariffs could even threaten the American gains of recent years.

The tariffs levied during Trump’s first term and Biden’s recent term have also hurt the economy.

The research suggests that Trump’s administration imposed approximately $80 billion in new taxes through tariffs between 2018 and 2019. The Biden administration retained the tariffs and in May added additional tariff hikes on $18 billion of Chinese goods, including semiconductors, which amounted to a tax increase of $3.6 billion.

It also shows that both Trump’s and Biden’s tariffs have lowered output, employment, raised prices and produced a “net negative impact on the U.S. economy.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that tariffs would hike up consumer goods but they added that after 2025, they would not have any “additional significant effects on prices.”
 

A giant electronic board shows CCTV broadcasting news of U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration outside a mall in Beijing, on January 21, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday (January 21, 2025) said his team is discussing imposing a 10% tariff on China starting February 1 based on the fact that the latter is sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada.

“We’re talking about a tariff of 10 per cent on China based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada,” Trump told reporters at a joint news conference at the White House along with Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, and Open AI CEO Sam Altman.

Also read | Trump 2.0 as disruptor of the global legal order

In response to a question, Trump said he is looking at February 1 as the date for the tariffs.

“For Mexico and China, we’re talking about approximately 25% [tariff],” the [resident said. Responding to another query, Trump said he did not “talk too much about tariffs” when he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week.

When asked if he has asked Xi Jinping to intervene to stop the war in Ukraine, Trump said China has not done very much on that.

“He’s got a lot of power. I said you ought to get it settled. I had that talk with President Xi the other day too. I said we don’t want that crap in our country. We’ve got to stop it. I would have stopped it. I had to deal with him where he was going to give the maximum penalty, which in China is death penalty, for drug dealing and he was all set,” Trump said.

“He was going to give the maximum penalty to fentanyl dealers if they send [the staff] to the United States. And of course, Biden didn’t pick that up. I had that deal all done. It was all wrapped up,” he added.

“We were going to get it done and then the election went — let’s put it nicely. It didn’t go the proper way. I’m trying to be nice about it. It [election] was rigged and we had an incompetent president elected who never followed up on that deal,” Trump said.

He added that if there was death penalty, “they wouldn’t be sending fentanyl to Mexico, Canada and other places”.

US president-elect Donald Trump on Friday threatened the European Union with tariffs if the bloc does not reduce its “tremendous” trade gap with Washington through oil and gas purchases. 

“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform in the early hours of Friday.

“Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!”

According to US figures, goods imports from the EU were $553.3 billion in 2022, while its exports to the bloc were $350.8 billion. 

This puts the US goods trade deficit with the EU at $202.5 billion that year.  

Trump, who takes office in January, has made sweeping threats of slapping tariffs on US trading partners — including Canada, Mexico and China — which could send reverberations across the global economy.

Accusing Canada and Mexico of allowing the United States to be flooded with illicit drugs and undocumented migrants, he had announced a 25 percent import tariffs, while also vowing at least 10 percent against China, Washington’s Asia-Pacific rival. 

Canada, Mexico and China make up three of the biggest US trading partners. 

Earlier this month, the European Union concluded a massive trade deal with four South American countries — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — which aims to create a 700-million-customer free-trade area. 

EU Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen had said the agreement would build trade bridges as “strong winds are blowing in the opposite direction, towards isolation and fragmentation” — comments largely seen as a nod to Trump’s threats to hike tariffs. 

Some analysts have said Trump’s tariff threat could be bluster, or an opening shot for leverage in future trade negotiations when he comes into office.

But Trump has continually insisted that “properly used” tariffs would be positive for the US economy. 

“Our country right now loses to everybody,” he told reporters at his Florida residence earlier this week. “Tariffs will make our country rich.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, Chief Executive Officer of NITI Aayog
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose high tariffs on three of its trading partners, including China will provide huge export opportunities for India and the domestic industry should prepare itself to tap into that, NITI Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said on Wednesday (December 4, 2024).

Mr. Trump last week vowed to introduce 25% tariffs (or customs duty) on imports from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on China.

“Whatever Trump has announced so far… I think there are opportunities for India. We are a man at first slip, the ball is coming in our direction. Are we going to hold it or drop the catch, it’s for us to see… and I think, you will see some steps in next few months,” Mr. Subrahmanyam told reporters here.

He said there is going to be huge disruptions because of that in the U.S. trade and that would open up “huge” opportunities for India.

“The question is if we actually prepare ourselves, it can lead to a massive boom… because there is going to be trade diversion,” he added.

The U.S. is the largest trading partner of India. India’s exports stood at $77.51 billion, while imports aggregated at $42.2 billion in the last fiscal. The U.S. also accounts for 70% of India’s IT export revenue.

“Our relationship with the U.S. is multi-dimensional. It is very deep. It’s not standing only on one leg which is trade, there are many many other dimensions. The two nations have a much deeper relationship and all these things will be taken into account,” he said.

These remarks assume significance as Mr. Trump during his election campaign, called India an “abuser” of import tariffs, a claim that echoed his October 2020 statement labelling India the “Tariff King”.

He has also warned BRICS countries against any move to replace the U.S. dollar and has sought a commitment from the nine-member group that includes India, Russia, China, and Brazil, among others.

Niti Aayog also unveiled a report on India’s trade. It will be released on a quarterly basis.

Mr. Subrahmanyam said trade needs to be promoted actively to make India a developed nation.

Vice Chairperson, NITI Aayog, Suman Bery said one should not be “obsessed with” trade deficits as a economy gains more from imports.

“Because we have a floating exchange rate, we structurally will have a trade deficit and because we want to invest, we will structurally have a current account of deficit….these are goods not bads,” Mr. Bery said adding “we have to walk a very careful line about not closing of imports to the point where we are cultivating local monopolies”.

Trade is not only about exports, it is about imports also, he added.

There is no chance that BRICS will replace the US Dollar in International Trade, said Trump (File)