Brahmins profiteering: Navarro takes Russian oil jibe at India

In a new rant against India for its purchases of Russian oil, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Brahmins were profiteering at the expense of Indians and that it needed to stop.

“Look (PM Narendra) Modi is a great leader,” Navarro, the Trump administration’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing, said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. He said he did not understand how the Indian leader was cooperating with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping when he was the leader of the biggest democracy in the world. “So, I would just simply say, the Indian people, please understand what’s going on here. You got Brahmins profiteering at the expense of the Indian people. We need that to stop,”

Navarro said.

He has been consistently targeting India over the last few days following a major downturn in ties between Washington and New Delhi over President Donald Trump’s policies on trade and tariffs. Trump has imposed 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs on India and an additional 25 per cent for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. India has termed the tariffs imposed on it as “unjustified and unreasonable”. he said.