Trump threatens 50% tariffs on India over ties to Russia and Brics bloc

The White House is placing an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, bringing total tariffs up to 50%, in retaliation for the country’s purchase of oil from Russia, according to an executive order signed on Wednesday morning. India has 21 days to respond to the potential tariffs before they go into effect. The tariffs will be tacked on to a 25% tariff on India Donald Trump set last week as a “penalty” for the country’s trading relationship with Russia. Last week, the president wrote on social media that India had “always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of energy”. “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care,” he wrote. Trump had signaled on Tuesday that he would imminently announce new tariffs, telling CNBC that the country was “fueling the war machine” against Ukraine. India has said that it feels unjustly singled out for its trade relationship with Russia. In a statement on Wednesday, the country’s ministry of external affairs said that its imports “are based on market factors and done with the overall objective of ensuring the energy security of 1.4 billion people in India”. “We reiterate that these actions are unfair, unjustified and unreasonable. India will take all actions necessary to protect its national interest,” the statement read. Previous trade talks between India and the United States collapsed over disagreements about opening up India’s vast agriculture and dairy sectors. On Thursday, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, said he would not compromise the interests of the country’s farmers even if he had to pay a heavy price for it, in his first comments since the threat of higher tariffs. Modi did not directly refer to the US tariffs or trade talks. Trump has also been critical of India’s role in the Brics trading bloc formed among some of the US’s trading partners and competitors, including Brazil, Russia, China and India. Trump has called the group “anti the United States”. In 2024, Indian imports into the US were estimated to be worth $129bn (£97bn). India now faces the highest tariff rate along with Brazil, which also has 50% tariffs in response to the country’s arrest of its former president Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally. A slate of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs are set to go into effect this Friday, including the 50% tariff on Brazil, a 35% tariff on Canada and a 25% tariff on Mexico. In recent weeks, Trump has set his sights on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, which he had said he would end in his first 24 hours in office. Trump set a 10-day deadline for this Friday for Russia to make a peace deal with Ukraine. The US special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow on Wednesday to hold talks with the Kremlin. Trump claimed “great progress was made” during the three-hour talks. When Trump was asked on Sunday what would happen if Russia does not end the war by his Friday deadline, he said: “Well, there will be sanctions, but they seem to be pretty good at avoiding sanctions.”