India bankrolling war with Russian oil buy: Peter Navarro

White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro stepped up his tirade against India on Friday, saying if the country wanted to be treated like a strategic partner of the US, “it needs to act like one” as he accused New Delhi of bankrolling the Ukraine war through Russian oil purchase.

Defending US President Donald Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods, Navarro stirred a controversy by sharing a picture of PM Narendra Modi meditating in a saffron robe.

Navarro’s post on PM Modi, part of a series of nine tweets that came a day after he claimed that the Ukraine conflict was “Modi’s war”, triggered outrage on social media as he was accused of “mocking” India’s cultural symbols and politicising religious imagery. He claimed that Indian refiners had turned the country into a “refining hub and oil money laundromat for the Kremlin”, buying discounted crude, re-exporting refined products, and enabling Moscow to secure hard currency.

“President Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs on Indian imports are now in effect. This isn’t just about India’s unfair trade — it’s about cutting off the financial lifeline India has extended to Putin’s war machine,” Navarro wrote.

He claimed that Russian oil, which made up less than a per cent of India’s imports before the Ukraine war, now accounted for more than 30 per cent — over 1.5 million barrels per day. He alleged that much of it was refined and exported, bringing Indian companies windfall profits while indirectly funding Russia’s war effort.

He argued that Washington ran a $50-billion trade deficit with New Delhi. He framed tariffs as a twin response: 25% for unfair trade and 25% for national security”.