WASHINGTON – Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, has made a serious complaint against India, saying that the country is “profiteering” from the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. Bessent said in a TV appearance that India’s “arbitrage”—buying cheap Russian oil and selling it as refined products—is a “unacceptable” activity that has made some of India’s richest families richer.
Bessent said that India’s activities are distinct from China’s since both countries are buying Russian oil, but they do so in very different ways. He said that China’s dependence on Russian oil has only gone up a little bit since the invasion in 2022, from 13% to 16% of all its imports. Bessent added that India’s purchases of Russian oil have gone up from less than 1% before the conflict to an amazing 42%.
Bessent said, “India is just making money,” and claimed that the country had made “excess profits” of $16 billion. He went on to say, “This is what I would call the Indian arbitrage—buying cheap Russian oil and selling it as a product. This just started happening during the war, which is not okay.”
The Treasury Secretary’s comments are similar to what White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said in an opinion piece for the Financial Times. Navarro said that India’s buying of Russian energy was “opportunistic” and “harmful” to efforts to isolate Russia’s economy around the world. He said that India’s actions make American and European taxpayers spend billions to help Ukraine while New Delhi keeps high tariffs and trade obstacles on U.S. exports. Navarro pushed for a “two-pronged policy” that would limit India’s access to U.S. markets and put pressure on the country to buy less oil from Russia. He said, “If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the US, it needs to start acting like one.”
These conflicts have made things between India and the U.S. more tense in the last several weeks. Due to the tense relationship, a scheduled trip by U.S. trade negotiators to New Delhi was put off. India has said that buying Russian oil is important for its national energy security and that the U.S. tariffs are “unreasonable” and “unjustified.” India points out that the U.S. and EU still trade with Russia in other goods.