New Delhi: “Modi’s war” — that’s how US President Donald Trump’s senior counsellor on trade, Peter Navarro, described the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Navarro is not the first Trump aide to link India with Russia’s aggression, but this is the first time someone from the US President’s inner circle has directly blamed New Delhi for what many in the Global South view as a conflict manufactured by the West, including Washington itself.

Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Navarro said: “Everybody in America loses because of what India is doing. Consumers, businesses, workers lose because India’s high tariffs cost us jobs, factories and higher wages. And then taxpayers lose because we got to fund Modi’s war.”

Trump has already imposed 25 per cent tariffs, plus an additional 25 per cent penalty for India’s purchase of “discounted” Russian crude, which the US claims funds Putin’s war. Indian exports to the US now face combined tariffs of 50 per cent.

It is another matter that China is the largest buyer of Russian crude, Europe remains the biggest buyer of Russian energy, and even the US continues to import nuclear fuel from Moscow. Despite sanctions and export bans, Washington still imports low-enriched uranium (LEU) from Russia. If anything, India — buying oil under a Western price-cap mechanism and reselling refined fuel to Europe — has been singled out for special punishment.

Unlike India, Washington cannot afford to escalate tariffs with Beijing. China extracts 90 per cent of the world’s rare earths — vital for EVs and tech products — and holds one of the largest shares of US treasury bonds. When Trump imposed reciprocal tariffs in April, Beijing began offloading bonds, sending ripples through US stock markets. Trump has since extended China a second 90-day reprieve to........

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