Trade policy
Oil from Russia: Trump removes punitive tariffs against India
Updated on 02/07/2026 – 01:08 amReading time: 2 minutes
Trump wanted to weaken Russia’s economy so that Putin would run out of money for the Ukraine war. He imposed tariffs on India because the country bought oil from the Russians. Now he sees progress.
US President Donald Trump is canceling punitive tariffs against India, with which he wanted to indirectly weaken Russia’s billion-dollar oil trade. The punitive tariff of 25 percent on goods imported from India to the United States, introduced in August, will no longer be levied from Saturday (US time), according to a decree by the Republican. Trump justified the move away from the punitive tariffs by saying that the world’s most populous country had taken steps to stop importing Russian oil. India has also agreed to purchase energy products from the USA. There is currently no official confirmation from the Indian government of such an import ban.
Trump had introduced the instrument of punitive tariffs against Russian trading partners in order to reduce the proceeds from the oil business with which Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin finances his war against Ukraine.
A few days ago, Trump said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop buying Russian oil and instead purchase significantly more oil from the USA and possibly Venezuela, which had been an important trading partner of Russia until the US military intervention in Caracas. At this time, Trump also announced the reduction of other, so-called reciprocal tariffs against India from 25 to 18 percent. This is how Trump describes tariffs that are intended to compensate for alleged imbalances and disadvantages for the USA in international trade.
The US President had already announced in October that Modi had assured him that his country would no longer buy oil from Russia. At the time, India expressed its willingness to increase energy imports from the USA, but left it open whether it would stop its controversial oil imports from Russia. A few days ago, Modi expressed relief that tariffs would be reduced, but once again left it unclear whether India would actually stop purchasing oil from Russia. The Hindustan Times reports that there are no immediate signs that India will reduce its energy purchases from Russia to zero.
Trump’s tariff reduction announcement comes days after India and the EU said they had completed their negotiations on a free trade agreement. This was seen as a geopolitically significant step, even against the background of Trump’s aggressive trade policy with tariffs as a means of pressure.
