Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was unaware that the United States imports uranium and fertilisers from Russia — a claim made by India as it pushed back against Western criticism of its continued oil trade with Moscow.
“I don’t know anything about it. I have to check it out,” Trump said when asked about India’s claim that Washington was singling it out unfairly while continuing to do business with Russia itself.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had issued a sharp statement a day earlier, defending its Russian oil imports and accusing the US and European Union of hypocrisy.
According to MEA, American companies continue to buy uranium hexafluoride for the nuclear industry, palladium for the EV sector, fertilisers, and chemicals from Russia — even as they pressure India to scale back its own trade ties.
The MEA called the criticism “unjustified and unreasonable” and said India’s energy purchases are dictated by economic necessity. It also reminded the US that Washington had earlier “actively encouraged such imports by India to strengthen global energy markets stability.”
This comes as Trump steps up pressure on India to continue to buy oil from Russia, warning that extra tariffs could be imposed within the next 24 hours.
“India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25 percent, but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil. They’re fuelling the war machine,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.
TRUMP HINTS AT TARIFFS ON IMPORTS FROM RUSSIA
When asked whether he would consider imposing a 100% tariff on countries that continue to buy energy from Russia — including China — Trump suggested that action could be on the table.
“I never said a percentage, but we’ll be doing quite a bit of that. We’ll see what happens over the next fairly short period of time. But we will see what happens… We have a meeting with Russia tomorrow. We’re going to see what happens,” Trump said.
The president also added that the goal of the talks will be to end the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“This is the one I’m trying to stop. And one I’m working hardest on. The others stopped within a matter of days,” Trump said.
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With inputs from Agencies