Public sentiment is predominantly critical of the proposed tariffs, viewing them as hypocritical and damaging to international relations. Many believe the US's approach, led by Trump, undermines India's and China's autonomy, with calls for both countries to resist US pressure and potentially strengthen ties with each other and align with BRICS. Concerns are raised about rising energy costs and the negative impact on US and EU economies, suggesting a preference for diplomatic negotiations rather than punitive tariffs.

United States

European Union

India

China

Companies in India are buying and refining. Then a lot of that refined products is sold in EU and US.  

ResponsibleBank1387

Tariffs are on India. Russia will keep selling the question is whether India will keep buying.

troublesome58

India just hosted the Chinese foreign minister, PM modi will visit China soon after 9 years, Direct flights are resuming soon. India will move away from the US and EU. The biggest backstabbing america did to India was hosting the Pakistani general and helping the terror state. 

As they say being America's friend is deadly.

Psychological-Dot270

The truth is that tarrifs are paid by the domestic importers. It’s going to do more damage to American companies than Indian ones. The EU buys a tonne of “indian” oil at high markup knowing full well that it’s that same oil it used to buy directly for cheaper. I never understood this. America has declining influence over this and it really wouldn’t hurt India or Russia very much to put tariffs and sanctions in place. Certainly less than it would damage indo-American geopolitical relations. It won’t be so long before India is a bigger gdpppp economy than America anyway and then they get to dictate. It’s a self inflicted wound that’s pretty pointless for the US

WonkiWombat

Why is Europe buying 19% gas from Russia?
Is europe going to buy from US LNG? 

So at the end of the day it is business $ and wtf care about Ukraine.

sfrogerfun

Why is no one talking about most of the Indian bought Russian oil is just refined and sold to the EU?

Fit_Rice_3485

And Americans will continue paying for all these new Trump Sales Taxes, because Trump got his feelings hurt by India. because india denied trump mediating indo-pak conflict earlier in the year. This quashed the Nobel chances for the pedo potus.

Trumplethinskin

flugenblar

Good idea -- and they gave India 5% discount too!

Prize-Grapefruiter

Easy for them to say,  they are already sanctioned.  It's people buying to decide if it's worth the trade off 

lAljax

So, the US just needs to increase them for better profit. Looks like some easy money.

Ok-Phone3834

America is just ending up creating extremely strong India-Russia-China economic trio, all of then ready to drop all differences and boost trade significantly.

Probably a BRICS currency is on the cards soon

Lumiaman88

That's not how any of this works, but ok.

Capable-Deer-5670

Cool, keep paying, all good. Win Win for USA.

Cautious-Roof2881

Russia oil refineries are being bombed. They sell it unrefined.

Away-Tea6971

GHASTLY_GRINNNNER

# Also, India says it will keep buying oil from Russia regardless of US tariffs.

hoppingpegion

I'm glad to see the wealthy Indian families still profit 📈.

InterestingList6729

Chingachgook1757

We’ll, derrr. Of course you will. You need money for drones to blow up schools and hospitals in Ukraine, you silly little man.

Tonethefungi

Americans will continue to print dollars😀😀😀

IntelligentMood4095

EU should tarrif the shit out of both India and China.

ConclusionCrazy355

All because Trump was in Russia and Putin just kept taped him on the back of the head and said good boy Donnie.

Particular_Row_8037

Obviously his trade policy is less about economics and more about whether a country's leaders are willing to kiss the ring. Countries with a history of strategic independence, like India or Switzerland, get hit with these punitive tariffs as a result.

plutoXL

This is higher than the tariffs on China. This means that according to US, India is a bigger adversary than China. I guess it's good that we have this clarity now. Time to start preparing for the G2 of this century, time to revive NAM and create a much more powerful NAM 2.0.

StarsInTears

Indian domestic consumption is about 60% of its GDP. Idk how will this hurt Indian economy. Ofc it will temporarily damage some sectors, but there are more than enough ways to bypass tariffs. I wish India imposes duty on generic medicines exported to US, which is about 45% of total generic medicine supply of US.

JustGulabjamun

Bizarre move. India is in need of cheap energy and is deeply protective of their domestic agriculture and textile industries (For generally not good reasons but that’s a different discussion). 

I don’t see how India can or will comply it would be political suicide domestically.

MeatPiston

This was a huge fumble from US's part ngl. India now has all the more reason to get closer to Russia, effectively going against US's main interest which was to get a trade from India.

SylvieSerene

Trump doesn't have any plans he just wakes up at 2-am and  pulls something out of his orange bun-hole and tosses it around hoping it sticks  like the ketchup on his wall,  then he will claim victory when they agree to the same plan  they had before, and all his sheeple will will lick his boots and say he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize as the Democrats representatives will sit back and whine calling him a meanie

Puzzleheaded-Fun7808

SS: The White House announced Wednesday that it is imposing an additional 25% tariff on India, bringing the total levies against the major United States trading partner to 50%.

“I find that the Government of India is currently directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil,” President Donald Trump said in an executive order.

“Accordingly, and as consistent with applicable law, articles of India imported into the customs territory of the United States shall be subject to an additional ad valorem rate of duty of 25 percent,” the executive order reads.

The new tariffs are set to go into effect in 21 days, according to the order, while the previously announced 25% tariffs are set to take effect on Thursday.

Mundane-Laugh8562

10Pints_to_Slytherin

When you look at the Trump admin, they’re not even that hawkish on China really. At least not compared to other key US trade partners and allies. 

I think there’s a real chance that the Trump admin decides that China isn’t worth fighting and it’s better to just make a deal with regards to influence in Asia.

If that happens India has much less leverage

lostinspacs

[deleted]

China actually does want India to open up to imports of course like Russia did recently.    However that means stunting India's rise and slowing down industrialization dramatically.     For India to win the future; it needs American costumers to pivot from China so there will be saber rattling on both sides to strengthen positions and then an agreement will be made.

All players have done that.  UK, EU Vietnam and so on have all gone to China to gain leverage and then make a deal with the US.

China gets legitimacy points out of this, that's why they play along, but we all know China will fumble the ball out of their hands as they cannot control themselves especially when it comes to conquests desires.

NefariousnessFit3133

I don’t get this notion that Indians have that their that important? They’re far closer to Pakistan than they are to China in terms of power and importance. India a good country for the west to make an example over about how serious it is over its Russia policy. They also don’t lose much over it anyway.

Thats-Slander

Why would they stop buying cheap oil and gas? They don't run business by racism like america does.

DarthDork73

It’s a needed commodity.  
The good guys say it’s terrible, the bad guys say it’s ok. 
All a matter of perspective. 

They usually don't maintain this level of imports from Russia in the energy sector for too long, at least not in pure oil transactions. This is literally a tried and tested response due to Trump's idiotic decision-making. They did this during Trump's first term in office as well.

The Yuan and Ruppee are trading at similar levels to right before oil prices fell off a cliff during covid, also during the trade spat Trump engaged in during the first few years of his first term.

BMWGulag99

They won’t, at this point Putin is happy to sell even his grandmother’s underwear for a penny to fund his stupid war of aggression and kill innocent people. India and china have blood on their hands and that’s how the world seems to work these days

Max061980

What if we find the new holy grail energy not in fossil fuels? Is the current world going to collapse? lol

Positive-Ad1859

war will over in one month 

but india and china didn’t care about human lives

spiress

Than everyone would fight over the oil that's left

BeneficialHurry69

Here’s how I think it plays out, but I’m open to others thoughts. Trump slaps additional Tariffs on India for buying sanctioned Russian crude 2 years ago. Meanwhile, Israel got approval to take over Gaza City. After the Trump-Putin Alaska meeting, I think next order of business is Trump sanctions Iran’s oil exports. Why? Cut off financial support to Hamas while Israel does their military thing.  How does it tie back to India? If China teapot refiners continue to buy Iran’s black market smuggled crude like they did during Trump’s first term, he credibly threatens massive tariffs will be imposed…just look over at India.  So, they’re forced to play nice, otherwise they go into a recession from 60% tariffs. Iran exports 3.5 MM bbls/d and if they go to 0…..for real….oil goes back to $85 and India increases Middle East crude imports and China increases Russian + Saudi imports.

It would lead to a financial collaps of the Russian state. Depending on how many new states rise from the ashes, there’ll be very cheap oil up for grabs a few years

Rich-Many1369

They'll pretend to stop if totally forced by economic sanctions but they'll still secretly buy it.

SystematicHydromatic

Maybe Indian exporters could absorb some tariffs. But I doubt we'd have 50% margins.
Might as well make it 100%.
Have little to lose now. 

There was never a chance in hell we'd stop buying from Russia.
But I think now we should increase it from the current 30% to higher since its significantly cheaper. Reduce the US' share to nil. Stop exporting to the EU if they had a role to play in this.

Cannot budge an inch on this. Need to reciprocate.
Trump was right initially as he tried to reduce tariffs through deals.

But with Pak and now Russia, he's challenging the foundations of India's autonomy. A matter India does not negotiate on.

shankisaiyan

Exactly.  
The reason India started sourcing from Russia in the first place was because Iran was sanctioned in Trump 1.0 (though it was JPCOA compliant at the time). That was followed  
by sanctioning Venezuela. All that it resulted in was lowering China's oil purchase prices, since China buys US sanctioned oil.

India's position has been that it will switch from Russian oil if there is an alternative. India has purchased oil from the US (and 39 other sources) but cannot make up for Russia volumes. Russian knows that. Hence, India buys Russian oil at only  marginal discount to prevailing prices. If India is forced to not buy, the price China pays will be a lot lower.

Turkiye will play both sides, buying Russia's oil and gas and reselling it. But they are NATO members and presumably sanctions proof.

Dean_46

How was this not obvious to anybody in the US administration? India cannot buy oil from Russia, Iran or Venezuela. US won't offer a price match. But China can buy oil from any / all of them. India is already in a weaker economic position than China, by raising energy costs for India all Trump is doing is offering a bigger pie of the market to China, hurting the US in the long run.

Most of SEA is already singing the China ***and*** US song. India is the only country which has kept the Chinese somewhat at bay by blocking RCEP, Belt &amp; Road, BYD etc. Trump's penny wise pound foolish moves will break that little barrier and destroy the India-US goodwill that took years to build.

PersonNPlusOne

THIS is the core dilemma of US foreign policy..
US cannot simultaneously confront both China and Russia at the same time. 

We know this for a fact that US joint forces cannot fight more than 1 war at anything nearing simultaneity. The 2018 NDS under Bridge Colby shifted it to 1 war force construct and the Biden admin reaffirmed it under 2022 National Defence Strategy.

So ironically, it is the US that must 'CHOOSE' whether it wants to prioritise the China threat or the Russia threat.

Its not all or nothing, but it's about prioritization and making the necessary tradeoffs for an effective grand strategy.

Top-Flatworm8201

WHEN WESTERN countries began boycotting Russian oil in 2022, India saw an opportunity. Some 2.6m barrels a day (b/d) of crude once destined for Europe were available—at a sweet discount. India, which bought next to no oil from Russia in 2021, pounced. It has remained Russia’s biggest customer ever since. Today it imports nearly 2m b/d of Russian “sour”, heavy crude, representing 35-40% of its crude imports. The supply reduces India’s import bill at a time when the world’s fastest-growing big economy burns ever more petroleum. Local refiners make a killing by processing the stuff into fuels that they then export at full cost.

Aralknight

China's oil strategy is never deeply reply on one supplier.

Russia crude oil took 19% of China's import in 2024, same in 2023, 17% in 2022, 15.5% in 2021.

 That's already high rate in recent, I don't think China would raise the share of Russian crude oil imports**​**.

corymuzi

We can’t force India to take a side. They are ideologically committed to continue their policy of playing all sides.

I think personally it is an outdated strategy that wont suit them in the coming century.

But here is the calculus, as far as I can summarize it:

1. Playing all sides has short term economic benefits. Big powers fight each other. Neutrality lets you use strategic ambiguity to let them try to bribe you to take their side (temporarily).
2. Avoiding wars allows you to avoid war debts. Staying aligned to other powers just enough to shift your weight around on the power scale can keep them off balance. You can also be the economic bridge when they cut themselves off from each other. India is perfectly located geographically to do this. Small capitulations here and there are preferential to large conflicts. They’ll cede land to maintain peace.
3. If India aligns with the west completely, it now shares a border with China and Russia. This puts two major adversaries right on them, in addition to their mortal enemy Pakistan. This brings conflict to them they wish to hold off.
4. They were once a british colony. The last thing culturally they wish to be is subservient to a western culture. It’s part of their cultural DNA. That would be political suicide for a politician.
5. They wish to portray the image of being a peaceful good samaritan. Ideally to build stronger ties with smaller nations. This is the perceived path to capitalize on when big powers fight and weaken each other.

However, I think that ultimately will play out to be a poor strategy. The crux of the success that has underpinned their strategy is a world that has remained relatively peaceful since WWII. We have had hot conflicts in their region, but they were contained to one country at a time. No major power has been in danger of true collapse. Fall of the soviets was only a partial collapse. There hasn’t been worldwide major power alliance conflict. Diplomatic solutions have been far more effective as a result. Their strategy maximizes diplomatic leverage. And that works well when major powers are competing, but not fighting for survival on death ground. You can lose the war in Vietnam and stay afloat. The scale is manageable.

However, it’s poorly suited to full scale war. Like the one that’s looming. There’s a very real danger of two of the 3 major powers they typically play against each other becoming consolidated into one major power. Russia cannot afford to lose Chinese support. They are becoming a Chinese vassal more and more. There’s a real chance they will collapse. At the very least, the flow of money, materials, and political influence china wields dwarfs india’s importance in Russia’s eyes. Russia wont materially oppose china if it escalates in India. The Putin regime can’t afford to.

The west keeps making overtures to influence India to their side. But over the decades, this has been so wildly ineffective that the west is now moving from carrot to the stick. This is a low trust relationship. If India needs western support, the west may just leave them high and dry. They didn’t scratch our backs, so why should we bail them out of theirs? If you want to be fiercely independent, dont be surprised when you have no real friends stepping up to defend you. You’ve slept with too many of their exes.

I think the west will look at an India/China conflict as a boon to their position. India can be used as a sacrificial lamb to weaken china, even if they are likely to lose. And the west really doesn’t owe India a thing. The west is obliged to support Ukraine. They committed to it. Its on their key allies front door. Their major military alliance is built for that. But India? They’re a major power. They should support themselves. The US can simply sit back and focus its resources elsewhere. India has built far more defensive pacts with Russia than the US. But Russian power is diminishing quickly. Its all focused on Europe, and they are being exhausted.

India placated China in the past. They bent over backwards to build relations with China. What did China do? Invade and grab territory. That conflict is still simmering to this day. China will play the long strategic game with India. It first needs to get the west out of “its” region. It wants to control asian trade on the water.

That’s the main saving grace to India. So long as the West is in Asia, they are priority #2 to Chinese expansion. But what happens when the US cant project power effectively in Asia? There’s a big fat ocean between the west and Asia. Thats a long way to move material in big ships in age of satellites and precision long range munitions.

India’s biggest shield goes away. And the US will prioritize South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Australia, NZ, and then..maybe India. That’s a lot of places. Even with an 11th hour US alignment, they’re sitting at the very bottom of the totem pole.

China just started a major dam project that will allow them to control the flow of water to India. Itll allow them to at the very least pressure india in every negotiation moving forward. They will literally be able to cause droughts or floods on demand. All while technically being in the grey zone. India will have no recourse.

China wants to forward deploy to control all the mountains. This builds the 2nd great wall of china. Once they have that, India will be at their mercy.

In a world at war, South America can afford to be neutral. But the Eurasian continent is the battleground. Every major player is in India’s backyard. All their neighbors are aligned or will become entrenched in their alliances. This is a major flaw in their plan.

3susSaves

So?  The us isn't at war with china, who cares?

Dull_Conversation669

If there is one thing the US and China can agree on, it is their mistrust of India. Indian diplomacy is really playing with fire because both US and China may one day both agree to off India.

Themetalin

Trump is delusional in believing he can bully every single countries with tax sanctions. Diplomacy exists for a reason.

SignificanceWild2922

Not quite sure what his plan was here, favorable treatment to Pakistan and remarks that sounded like taunts? Did he really think he'd simply strong-arm India after it? India has a history of this from the West, and its one thing it absolutely won't back down from.

The more I look at it, the more I realise that the current US administration doesn't have any well thought-out, grand plans, they're just fumbling around with everything they do.

The thing is, India is on the verge of a massive oil discovery in the Andaman Sea, provided its feasible, India's oil exports from Russia would've naturally tapered off once the infrastructure and oil rigs were put in place to exploit it.

But this might cause India to submit, sure. Not to the US though, as Pakistan seems to get be getting closer to the US, China might just take this opportunity for a realignment, Russia has been advocating for RIC's since forever, and so far, India had been actively throttling Chinese companies from entering India, BYD literally had to get through so many intentionally set-up roadblocks and obstacles just to put money into India. This can always change. India is different from most other emerging economies in that its majorly consumption driven. These tariffs will have a limited effect on the growth itself, but it sure will send a signal, and not a good one.

Old-Machine-8000

India doesn’t export than much to the US, $88 billion. India imports about $252 billion in oil. It’s worth it for India to ignore the US and to continue to buy cheap oil from Russia because it will save a lot more money buying cheap Russian oil than it will lose with higher US tariffs.

stewartm0205

From an Indian perspective: what exactly is the US and the West in general offering in return for cutting ties with Russia? US has always sided with India's arch rival Pakistan until 1990s and has at best remained "neutral" since then when it realized India could be a more reliable military and trade partner in Indo-Pacific, all the while funding and arming Pakistan and turning a blind eye to Pakistan's support for terrorism against India. 

US and many NATO members (with the exception of France perhaps) refuse to sell defence equipment to India and/or share tech. They lecture India about "human rights" while there are innumerable human rights abuses in their own countries. And they wax eloquent about helping India grow its economy and reduce poverty while they sanction countries that India buys oil from (Iran, Venezuela and now Russia) without offering sufficient alternatives. And they don't explicitly support India when China repeatedly intrudes into its territory on the border, while expecting India to fight their battle against China in the Indo-Pacific. And India gets neither trade / investment guarantees nor energy supplies nor defence supplies / tech from the US and EU, who simply continue dragging their feet, offering feeble and wobbly support that changes every time there's a government change and lecturing India on poverty/human rights/blah blah.

So why should India give up its trade and defence relationship with Russia and turn pro-US or pro-West? Why should India kowtow to bullying tactics on trade and tariffs? What exactly is the US offering India, especially when Trump thinks India's $4 trillion economy growing at 7% is a "dead economy"?

disc_jockey77

Why would India care what poo-poo pants says

There was hope for the pro-west treaties under Biden and Modi to flourish but I suppose Trump has some strange urge to bring about the Chinese century

OrangeSpaceMan5

Indian officials said on Saturday that they would keep purchasing cheap oil from Russia despite a threat of penalties from President Trump, the latest twist in an issue that New Delhi thought it had settled.

Mr. Trump said last week that as part of his latest round of tariffs, he would impose an unspecified additional penalty on India if it did not cut off its imports of Russian crude oil. On Friday, he appeared to echo reports of a recent dip in the arrival of Russian oil to India.

“I understand that India is no longer going to be buying oil from Russia,” he told reporters. “That’s what I heard. I don’t know if that’s right or not. That is a good step. We will see what happens.”

But on Saturday, two senior Indian officials said there had been no change in policy. One official said the government had “not given any direction to oil companies” to cut back imports from Russia.

Mr. Trump did not say what the penalty would be if India were to defy his call to cut off Russian oil imports. Some officials and analysts have said that Mr. Trump’s focus on India’s purchase of Russian oil could be a negotiating tactic as India and the United States try to conclude the early phases of a bilateral trade agreement. China and Turkey, two other major importers of Russian oil, have not faced similar penalties.

Until the West is fully on board full decoupling from China I am not sure why the West thinks India would or should act against Russia. The West enriched and strengthened Indias adversarial neighbor and can't be baffled they'd want to be in good graces of countries like Russia as a hedge.

Linny911

India has a 1.4 billion population greater than US and EU combined so they need to do what’s right by their people. Especially when Russia was selling at a discounted rate. 

Plus EU don’t want to be seen as buyers of Russian oil on morality grounds- India buys Russian oil, processes it and sells it to EU, so now EU don’t look hypocritical. 

If you want to win over friends, threats and big words (tweets) will not do it- they are not 6 year olds, these are nations with thousands of years of history, a generally successful democracy. Get them across a table and talk your points out.

hinterstoisser

Good, good! Let's see what Trump will actually do. Talk is cheap. If he wants to be taken seriously he has to back it up with actions. Otherwise the russians will devour him.

legitematehorse

Trump is dumb. Europe's approach is much more sensible, because they don't want to stop Russian oil but rather make sure that is sold at a discount. Stopping Russian oil would be impossible and it would just raise prices, increasing Russian profits. The countries that buy Russian oil are definitely buying it at a discount, because they don't need to pay full market price since there is a smaller market for Russian oil. Furthermore, Russian oil is expensive to extract when comparing to Saudi Arabia. So, their margins are definitely getting squeezed.

leto78

Talking and doing are two different things.  Hindians are keeping face 

Any-Original-6113

Trump just needs to hit them where it hurts. Cognizant, InfoSys, Tata and Wirpro.

refep

The EU's rejection of U.S. proposals to impose tariffs on India and China for Russian oil purchases highlights complex international trade relationships amid geopolitical tensions.

US-EU Tariffs on India and China over Russian Oil Purchases

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