The Kremlin on Tuesday pushed back on Trump's claims that India is preparing to cut off Russian oil purchases following his major Truth Social announcement of a new US-India trade deal that sharply reduces tariffs on Indian exports.
"So far, we haven't heard any statements from New Delhi on this matter," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, signaling that Moscow has received no official confirmation from India in light of Trump's assertions.
Peskov said Moscow is still "carefully monitoring the news" around Trump's claims, on the heels of his "wonderful" phone call with India's Modi and the tariff relief.
Trump had announced the US will trim its punitive tariff on Indian imports to 18% after striking what he hailed as a new "trade deal” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Crucially it hinges on New Delhi having reportedly ended its purchases of Russian crude and swapping them for massive US energy and goods buys.
"Out of friendship and respect for Prime Minister Modi and, as per his request, effective immediately, we agreed to a Trade Deal between the United States and India, whereby the United States will charge a reduced Reciprocal Tariff, lowering it from 25% to 18%," Trump posted. "Our amazing relationship with India will be even stronger going forward."
And yet, 24 hours later and India's Foreign Ministry has also remained silent on the question of abandoning Russian oil.
Given all of this, and that the potential remains that Trump's statements were too out front and presumptuous in terms of anything India may have actually agreed to in a finalized way, Peskov additionally said that while Russia "respects" US-Indian relations, Moscow's priority remains its own "strategic partnership" with New Delhi.
"And we intend to continue to comprehensively develop our bilateral relations with New Delhi, which is exactly what we’re doing," he emphasized.
As recently as December, President Vladimir Putin said Russia was prepared to continue “uninterrupted shipments” of oil to India despite pressure from Washington.
Modi's learning from Trump's social media about how India will not buy Russian oil & details of US India trade deal (before any Indian announcement) is certainly a first...
Perhaps Trump's statement was intentionally premature in order to build more leverage and pile the pressure on Modi? The 'devil is in the details' in terms of what was actually agreed to in the phone call. The coming days will likely tell.
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Below is more commentary via Rabobank...
Trump also struck a trade deal with India, reducing reciprocal tariffs to 18% and dropping the additional 25% after claiming India would stop buying Russian oil in favor of Venezuelan, showing how geopolitics links up. This isn’t the FTA the EU just signed, but let’s see which proves more important over time: as a well-placed Indian source noted to me, there‘s no growth in Europe vs. the US.
The fact the US will insist on the same no-transshipment rules for Chinese goods that it has with other trade partners is a blow to Beijing; equally, it blows up European hopes of building a trade coalition without the US (and in India frictions will continue, i.e., the EU agreed on green tech collaboration with Delhi, but the US said it is going to sell it more coal). The defense component will also be key. Europe now has a strategic partnership with India in that regard, but national governments hold sway there: will they want to see their defense industries moved to South Asia(?) By contrast, the US is able to move faster, though we shall see what they are prepared to share with India. Delhi at least gets to play both sides off against the other.