0:02 [Music] Welcome to Conversations. I'm Mkhtad Khan, your host. And today I'm going to talk to you about the war of words between Donald Trump and India. Clearly, Donald Trump this morning launched a a a massive verbal assault on India. Uh threatening to increase the tariff rates on India in a big way. He has already done that by imposing uh a 21st 5% tariff across the board on India until uh the bilateral trade agreement which is being negotiated is finalized. But he also threatened with penalties and clearly today's uh truth social post is probably
0:47 about the fact that he's going to levy very high penalties on India in the form of tariffs. uh and uh uh let me just share that uh truth social post for you. But India did come back with a very strong uh statement and response. uh given the that for the past 6 months India was playing on the back foot and completely avoiding any confrontation uh with Donald Trump uh this particular statement from India is a turning point I think in in in in India US relations because India has finally retaliated in a way uh words against Donald Trump's uh some of his statements are unfair some of them are hypocritical and India has
1:34 gone to great lengths to point them out. But this particular response by India which is clearly very strong and and I will unpack it for you also sends the message that we have reached a turning point in India US relations that raises the question uh is Quad now dead after this exchange will there be a bilateral trade agreement with between India and the US? Uh will Donald Trump come to India uh for the quad summit uh in in September? Uh and uh will they both Donald Trump and Narendra Modi who were supposedly great friends uh and India banked so much on their friendship uh to improve and advance US India strategic
2:21 partnership. Will that continue? So there are lots of serious questions that are raised by this war of words. uh but let me first show you what Donald Trump posted uh and then we will uh go forward and talk about India's response which I said was pretty strong. So this is what Donald Trump posted. He said India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian oil they are then for much of the oil purchase selling it on the open market for big profits. Uh yes there is evidence that India is has been uh selling but India claims that what it is selling back often to even Europe uh is refined oil. So it's not just that they're buying crude oil cheap and selling crude oil uh at a
3:06 profit. What uh what they're doing is uh refining that particular oil and selling it abroad. You must also uh recognize that uh it's not yet fully determined how much of uh Russian oil is being resold uh after it has been refined by India. But clearly there is a lot of literature on there out there. They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian war machine. Because of this I will be substantially raising the tariff paid by India to the US. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump. Well, he's blaming now India for the people who are being killed in Ukraine. First of all, India is not the biggest buyer of Russian oil. It is China. China's uh purchases uh
3:55 imports this year or in 2024 were about $130 billion of imports from Russia. The total Russia China trade is about $250 billion. And some of the stuff that Russia is uh China is selling to Russia is dual purpose which means it can be used for military weaponry also. But Donald Trump is not taking any such steps against China primarily because he hopes to have a positive uh trade deal with China and China has leverage against the US especially with regards to rare earth mater material minerals and magnets. Uh, so basically Donald Trump is taking out his frustration with his inability to get Russia and Ukraine
4:42 to sign a peace accord or at least to have a ceasefire on India because he sees India as the weakest link out there. I guess he can't bully Russia. He can't bully China. So he's trying to bully India. Uh this is Donald Trump's statement. uh and uh he's clearly tied uh uh substantial tariffs to India's purchase of oil. Uh and as it has been made clear, India has sent clear signals that it will continue to buy Russian oil because this is in in India's national interest. It wants to buy inexpensive oil for its uh people. India is still a poor country. It uses a lot of oil. uh and so it would be against its national
5:28 interest to buy more expensive oils from elsewhere. And then this is the Indian response uh issued by the Ministry of External Affairs. I wonder when Prime Minister Modi is ever going to tweet uh something directly to Donald Trump. So far he has avoided uh having any exchange with uh President Trump. uh in fact if this particular statement was uh tweeted by Prime Minister Modi, it would have carried more weight. Nevertheless, this is what India has said. Uh I'm sure all of you have by now read this public statement. It has been discussed heavily both in media, print media and social media. Uh but basically this is what uh
6:13 India says. India is saying that when it started buying Russian oil, it essentially helped stabilize the global oil markets and it was encouraged by the United States to do so because the US did not want the global energy markets to become volatile and India helped itself by buying inexpensive and discounted Russian oil but it also helped the global market. uh and then in uh it goes on to say that the point two is something that I find a bit uh troubling. It says India's imports are meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy cost to the Indian consumer. They are a necessity compelled by global market situation. However, it is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia. Unlike
6:59 our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion. uh I guess India has completely abandoned any discussion of India Russia relations in this point and it says that the only reason why India is potentially buying this is because uh of the market conditions it is essentially the fact that Russian oil is being sold at a discount that's the only reason why India is buying Russian oil uh it has nothing to do with what is often used as true and tested friendship with Russia etc. uh this is not part of India's global bricks agenda uh to undermine west or undermine American power. Uh this is not to help a friend in need. Uh in fact India is actually profitering from a friend who is in
7:46 trouble. Um I I I I don't like this particular paragraph because it completely throws Russia under the bus. uh number three or at least India Russia relations under the bus. The other points three and four basically highlight uh the fact that Europeans and and uh Americans have also been trading with Russia. uh especially Europe which has bought a lot of its energy from Russia and then from India which was selling Russian refined oil to Europe and so India is just pointing out the hypocrisy of Europe and US because they continue to buy uh uh energy from Russia. uh but they want India to pay
8:33 for the civilizational agenda of the west which is to undermine Russia and make uh Ukraine a western European country. This is a civilizational agenda. This is not about US national security or the national security of Germany, France or Britain. That is not at risk in this war at all. What is at risk is the expansion of NATO, the expansion of the western civilization uh and the diminishing of the Russian uh empire and uh the west is basically demanding that India pay a price for that by not taking advantage of inexpensive and discounted Russian oil. Uh so so basically this these two points are about western hypocrisy. Uh and then
9:20 the last point that uh India makes is this that it says given this context the fact that the west is still engaging with Russia financially uh demanding that India do so and targeting only India is unjustified and unreasonable. Uh like any major economy India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interest and economic security. This point number six is also a veiled reference to China because China is the biggest importer of Russian oil. China's trade with Russia is four times that of India. India's total trade is about 65 to 68 billion dollars and Russia is about 240 to 250 billion dollars. Uh so it's four times India's trade. But uh the US is not punishing
10:06 China. Neither is Europe punishing China. Even though uh they did have a discussion uh Wonderland did have a a discussion just a couple of weeks ago with Xi Jinping about this issue. So India feels that it has been targeted and isolated alone. Uh and so it finds it unjustified and unreasonable. India could have said things much more stronger. But given how weak Narendra Modi's foreign policy has been lately since the election of Donald Trump uh uh this is a a very strong statement to come out of uh the Modi foreign policy establishment. Uh but you must understand that uh uh that uh it is not
10:52 being uh you know it is being cheered in in the United States. So for example, here are two tweets by one by a represent uh representative Marjgerie Taylor Green who reacted to Donald Trump's post by saying end Indian H1B visas replacing American jobs instead and stop funding and sending weapons to the Obama Biden neoon Ukraine Russia war. So basically she's saying stop supporting Ukraine and also stop uh sending jobs to India or hiring Indians uh to do jobs which potentially Americans can do. And Lindsey Graham, of course, I mean, this is the man who wants to impose 500% tariffs on India as well as China. He's introduced a bill to do that. I appreciate your strong commitment to ending this blood bath in
11:38 Ukraine, making those like India pay a price for the their war profiteering is a good place to start. So in in defense of the west the west at least the European countries which continue to buy Russian oil they will say it is their need it is in their national interest to buy Russian oil and they're not reselling Russian oil and making a profit like some of India's private sector companies are doing. So all the oil that India is buying is not being sold or consumed by Indians. Some of it is being exported and these private companies and private uh refinery owners I think the Ammanis etc are also making a lot of profit. So
12:26 there is an element of profitering for no doubt in India's position on this. uh and uh I think that is something that uh can be potentially negotiated with the don with uh uh with Donald Trump uh and uh I think India could uh basically buy what it needs uh and not but but but but that's not the real point that would be succumbing to to bullying by Washington and India wants to pretend that it is a major world power it is that this is a multi-polar world and we are all equal powers and we should treat each other equally. That is not really going to happen. Uh but but this is a a war of words that
13:11 has been triggered today. Uh I suspect that the the bilateral trade agreement negotiations are not going well and Donald Trump is expressing his frustration. Uh so not only are the trade agreement negotiations not going well but also Donald Trump's attempts to bring about ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine are not going well. He's under pressure to send more weapons and more aid to Ukraine which he does not want to do. If he does that he will be under pressure from his own MAGA crowd which is completely opposed uh to any further foreign aid to Ukraine or selling weapons or giving them weapons. So Donald Trump is basically caught up in this mesh and he's unable to resolve uh
13:56 this integrate web of of pressures uh and so he's basically unleashing his anger and frustration on India undoubtedly uh and uh partly because India has been so survile in the past six months. In fact, when Prime Minister Modi came here in February, he had already reduced tariffs on many products. And I had written an article saying Donald uh Prime Minister Modi is uh uh you know uh preemptively bending the knee to Donald Trump. So India has played on the back foot for the past 6 months and I think uh they have reached uh the point of no return and so India has responded
14:42 because there's also domestic pressure on Prime Minister Modi. There are slogans such as narend surrender uh being propagated by the opposition and they are saying that Prime Minister Modi does not have any guts to face up uh to Donald Trump uh and uh is basically being abused and bullied uh by Trump. Uh and so in the past, Prime Minister Modi has made many statements about having a 56 in chest and having a muscular foreign policy. And so the opposition uh saw this as an opportunity to basically bring him down a couple of pegs. And uh but I think the the biggest casualty of this war of war of words will be the the so-cal
15:29 strategic partnership between India and the United States. So so it raises very serious questions and given the fact that in India's response to the US China is not mentioned at all. India doesn't mention China at all. Even though point number six may be alluding in indirectly to China. Uh why are you just targeting us? Why aren't you also including Turkey and China who also buy Russian oil and UAE for that matter and Kazakhstan and Belarus? But uh the fact that neither Trump is targeting China, neither is India mentioning China in his response uh clearly shows that uh perhaps uh the
16:15 Quad uh as a primary alter uh balancer of China's rising power in Asia and the world uh may be losing its steam uh and if Donald Trump is going to have direct relations with China and I think that if by August 12 there is a bilateral trade agreement between US and China and not between US and India then it raises a really big question mark about this so-called strategic partnership between the US and India. If China is not a threat to the US, at least if Donald Trump does not see China as a threat, uh then he is not
17:00 going to be willing to pamper India the way Joe Biden and his administration had done. uh one piece of advice to India. India in the past few years has used its uh geopolitical location to take its relationship with the US forward because to the Biden administration geopolitics was more important than international economics and geoeconomics. But for Donald Trump, geopolitics is not the number one criteria. His foreign policy is not driven by geopolitics and power politics. It is motivated by
17:46 old-fashioned mercantalism about economic power, economic wealth and economic prosperity. And that is why I think that is a fundamental difference. India is still playing with the old ball. is still playing with the old assumptions about India's geopolitical significance with regards to China and that does not really matter to Donald Trump as much as it did to Joe Biden. Anyway, uh we will keep an eye on this issue as it unfolds. I think there will be more to it and uh thank you for watching conversation. For those of you in India who are watching, congratulations. The Indian test team won an amazing match uh and uh and drew the series with England two and two
18:32 otherwise the result would have been three and one that would have been devastating. Uh and I'm absolutely thrilled that fellow Hyderabadi uh Siraj did such an incredible job. He's a lionhearted bowler. He he fought for India so hard. uh and unlike other stars who was celebrated far more than him, he played all the five test matches. I think he is the only fast bowler from both the teams who played all the five matches, stayed fit and gave his utmost to his country and to his team. Congratulations to India. Congratulations to the Indian cricket team and congratulations and salute to DSP Raj. Thank you for watching conversations. Uh, please like this
19:17 video, press the bell icon, subscribe to the channel, and don't forget to share this video with your social political network. Until next time, I'm your host, Muktan. Take care.
