reported<\/a> by Reuters. But according to the news agency, major Indian and Chinese refiners have now reduced purchases following fresh US sanctions on Russian producers, which has led to Russian oil trading at a steep discount to Brent crude.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIndia is the second largest importer of Russian crude after China. Russian oil made up 35% to 40% of India’s oil imports in 2024 – up from 3% in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delhi has defended its purchases of Russian oil, arguing that as a major energy importer, it must buy the cheapest available oil to protect millions of poor Indians from rising costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has also pointed to ongoing oil trade between Europe and Russia as an example of being selectively targeted for its imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along with reducing dependence on Moscow, the Trump administration has been putting pressure on Delhi to buy more oil and gas from the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Indian government spokesman had previously said discussions were “ongoing” with the US administration which had “shown interest in deepening energy co-operation with India”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While India’s oil purchases from Moscow had significantly strained US-India ties, the relationship appears to be on the mend, with Trump previously saying he frequently communicates with his Indian counterpart via phone calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two have also publicly expressed their commitment to furthering India-US ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until recently, the US was India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $190bn in 2024. Trump and Modi have set a target to more than double this figure to $500bn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that trade talks with India are “going good” and also hinted at a possible visit to the country next year. While speaking to reporters at a White House press briefing, Trump called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a friend” and a “great man” and said India had “largely stopped buying oil from Russia”, a claim he has repeated in the past weeks. Trump had slapped India with 50% tariffs in August, including a 25% penalty for buying Russian oil and arms, which he says was funding Moscow’s war with Ukraine – a charge… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51759,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51757\/revisions\/51759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}