President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday morning that he is authorizing 25% tariffs on India, which will take effect Aug. 1, due to the country’s import of Russian energy and military equipment.
“Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country,” the president said in a post on Truth Social.
“Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE — ALL THINGS NOT GOOD! INDIA WILL THEREFORE BE PAYING A TARIFF OF 25%, PLUS A PENALTY FOR THE ABOVE, STARTING ON AUGUST FIRST,” he continued.
The levy stems from the “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump imposed on several trading partners in April as the White House sought to make the terms of a host of economic agreements more favorable to the United States. The tariffs on India were among a number that were delayed twice until the Trump administration set a “firm” Aug. 1 deadline as the White House engaged in trade negotiations with world leaders.
While India and several other countries have been viewed as close to coming to a revised trade deal with Washington, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this week the “Liberation Day” tariffs would take effect on Friday, ruling out another extension of the August deadline.
“No extensions. No more grace periods. Aug. 1, the tariffs are set. They’ll go into place,” Lutnick said on Fox News Sunday.
Trump’s focus on India comes as New Delhi, which has held a close relationship with Russia for decades, has moved closer to the U.S. in recent years.
The U.S. views India, a semi-democracy that has gained significance as the world’s most populous country, as a key regional counterweight to China.
However, the relationship between the U.S. and India has remained complicated at times, due partly to New Delhi’s reliance on Russian energy supplies and military equipment.
Over the past two decades, India has sought to diversify military assets, leaning heavily into buying Western equipment as it seeks to wean off its reliance on Russia. Still, the country has attracted Washington’s ire by buying Russian oil sold at discounted rates after Western nations imposed sanctions on Moscow due to its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia has since become India’s biggest oil supplier.
Earlier this month, Trump threatened sanctions on buyers of Russian exports unless Moscow agrees to a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days. That means countries like India could be subject to a 25-to-50-point tariff on all oil.
India’s envoy to the United Kingdom, Vikram Doraiswami, argued last week that Western criticism of New Delhi’s oil imports from Moscow ignored the country’s long-standing relationship with Russia, which dates back to the Soviet Union being India’s main backer against Pakistan during the Cold War.
India can’t afford to “switch off its economy,” Doraiswami said, explaining that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “closeness” with Russian President Vladimir Putin is partly based on “our long-standing security relationship that goes back to an era in which some of our western partners would not sell us weapons but would sell them to countries in our neighbourhood that use them only to attack us.”
India’s “energy relationship” with Russia is a result of “everybody else buying energy from sources that we used to buy from earlier,” he continued during remarks to British radio station Times Radio. “So we’ve been displaced out of the energy market largely, and the costs have gone up. We are the third-largest consumer of energy in the world. We import over 80% of our product. What would you have us do? Switch off our economy?”
Trump teased the revival of India’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on Tuesday despite characterizing Modi as a good friend.
“I think so,” Trump said when asked to confirm reports that India’s tariffs could range between 20% and 25%. “India has been a good friend, but India has charged, basically, more tariffs than almost any other country. You know that, right?”
Trump first hit India with a 26% levy during his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement of global tariffs placed on dozens of the U.S.’s leading trading partners. A week later, Trump implemented a 90-day suspension of those tariffs as countries bid to negotiate trade deals viewed more favorably with the White House, although the president left a 10% baseline tariff in place. Trump later extended the deadline again with an executive order pushing the second July 9 cutoff to an Aug. 1 deadline.
Some progress was made on revising a trade agreement between India and the U.S. when Vice President JD Vance visited the country and met with Modi in April, according to the White House.
TRUMP TARIFF LETTERS: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW TRADE DEALS, RATES AND ‘LIBERATION DAY’ PAUSE
“Now I believe that our nations have much to offer to one another, and that’s why we come to you as partners, looking to strengthen our relationship,” Vance said during a speech in Jaipur.
“Now we’re not here to preach that you do things any one particular way. Too often in the past, Washington approached Prime Minister Modi with an attitude of preaching,” the vice president added.
