Trump says he will 'substantially' raise tariffs on India over Russian oil purchase

"India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the open market for big profits," Trump said in a social media post.

"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 USA," the US president added.

On August 1, Trump signed an executive order titled 'Further Modifying The Reciprocal Tariff Rates’, raising tariffs for over five dozen countries, including a steep 25% for India.

The executive order, however, did not mention the “penalty” that Trump had said India will have to pay because of its purchases of Russian military equipment and energy.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, in an interview to Fox News Sunday, stated that President Trump has said very clearly that “it is not acceptable for India to continue financing" the Ukraine war by purchasing oil from Russia.

Last week, Trump mounted a sharp attack on India and Russia for their close ties and said the two countries can take their "dead economies down together", a remark which prompted New Delhi to say that India is the world's fastest-growing major economy.

Trump had earlier announced a 25% tariff on imports of Indian goods along with an unspecified "penalty" for buying the "vast majority" of Russian military equipment and crude oil.

Declaring that the US has a massive trade deficit with India, Trump had said that while “India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the world, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary trade barriers of any country.

"Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia and are Russia's largest buyer of energy, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to stop the killing in Ukraine—all things not good!” Trump had said.