‘Don’t know’ about US imports from Russia, says Trump

Donald Trump claimed ignorance over continued US imports of Russian commodities after India hit back at criticism of its oil purchases from Moscow. The former US President reiterated plans to raise tariffs on India and others buying Russian energy.

New York/Washington: President Donald Trump has said that he doesn’t know anything about the US imports of Russian uranium, fertilisers and chemicals.

Trump made the comments on Tuesday while responding to a question on India’s statement on American imports of these commodities. “I don’t know anything about it. I’d have to check, but we’ll get back to you on that,” Trump said, adding that he will soon decide on tariffs to be imposed on nations buying Russian energy.

---

Trump has threatened to “substantially” raise US tariffs on India, accusing it of buying massive amounts of Russian oil and selling it for big profits. India on Monday mounted an unusually sharp counterattack on the US and the European Union for their “unjustified and unreasonable” targeting of New Delhi for its procurement of Russian crude oil.

Firmly rejecting the criticism, India pointed out the double standards in targeting it on the issue and said both the US and the EU are continuing their trade relations with Russia. “Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement on Monday night.

The Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy, but also fertilisers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel, and machinery and transport equipment, the MEA said. “Where the US is concerned, it continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilisers as well as chemicals,” it added. “In this background, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable,” the MEA said.

In response to another question that he has threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on all countries that purchase Russian energy, including China, Trump said, while he never said a percentage, “but we’ll be doing quite a bit of that. We’ll see what happens over the next fairly short period of time”.

He said that the US has a “meeting with Russia” on Wednesday, without giving further details on where and what the meeting will entail. “We’re going to see what happens. We’ll make that determination at that time.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said in an interview with CNBC that India has not been a good trading partner and announced he is “going to raise” tariffs on India “very substantially over the next 24 hours” because New Delhi is buying Russian oil and “fuelling the Ukraine war machine”.

At the event Tuesday afternoon, where Trump signed an executive order establishing a White House Olympics Task Force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, he repeated again that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan, a claim he has made over 30 times since May 10.

India has been consistently maintaining that the understanding on cessation of hostilities with Pakistan was reached following direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two militaries.