U.S. doesn’t need ‘unfair trade’ with India: Peter Navarro

The U.S. doesn’t need “unfair trade” with India but New Delhi is “desperately” looking for access to the American markets, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro has said.

In the last few weeks, Mr. Navarro has made a series of critical remarks against India, especially for its continuing procurement of Russian crude oil.

The White House trade advisor’s remarks came on a day U.S. President Donald Trump announced that India and the U.S. are continuing negotiations to address the trade barriers.

Mr. Trump, in a post on social media, said he was looking forward to speaking to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the upcoming weeks. “I feel certain that there will be no difficulty in coming to a successful conclusion for both of our Great Countries!” However, Mr. Navarro, in a series of posts on ‘X’, hit out at India.

“The U.S. doesn’t need unfair trade with India. But India desperately needs access to U.S. markets and schools and intends to continue taking U.S. jobs,” he said.

The Trump administration official also repeated his previous allegations that India is fuelling Russia’s war machinery.

“India fuels Russia’s war chest. India is protectionist, with sky-high tariffs. The U.S. runs a massive trade deficit with India,” he said. Mr. Navarro also claimed that “India’s sky-high tariffs” are costing the U.S. its jobs.

“India buys Russian oil purely to profit. Those revenues fuel Putin’s war machine,” he alleged.

The relations between New Delhi and Washington witnessed a major downturn after Mr. Trump doubled tariffs on Indian goods to a whopping 50% including a 25% additional duties for India’s purchase of Russian crude oil.

India described the U.S. action as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.