Indians are very ‘arrogant’, says White House trade adviser Peter Navarro

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has accused India of showing “arrogance” by refusing US demands to halt imports of Russian oil.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that tariffs on Indian goods would be doubled to 50% in a bid to pressure New Delhi, with the new duties affecting more than half of India’s exports to the American market. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, responded by stressing self-reliance and saying India was prepared to withstand the tariffs.

“What’s troubling to me is that the Indians are so arrogant about this. They say, ‘it’s our sovereignty, we can buy oil from anyone we want,’” Navarro told Bloomberg TV. While praising Modi as a strong leader of a mature democracy, he said New Delhi had bluntly refused to curb Russian oil purchases.

According to Navarro, India could see tariffs reduced by 25% if it stopped buying Russian crude. He argued that India’s trade with Moscow ultimately benefits Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine, which then fuels additional demands for aid from Kyiv and Europe.

Calling the Ukraine conflict “Modi’s war,” Navarro suggested that India held partial responsibility for prolonging the fighting, insisting that “the road to peace runs, in part, through New Delhi.”

He had earlier labelled India a “laundromat for the Kremlin.”

India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has rejected such criticism, stressing that other countries purchase refined fuel from India voluntarily. “Nobody forces you to buy it. Europe buys, America buys—so if you don’t like it, don’t buy it,” he said last week.