US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is mulling further sanctions on Russia, including punitive trade tariffs on India for importing oil from Moscow, as a step to urge an end to the Ukraine war. Rubio also called on European nations to impose such penalties.
“Right now there are countries in Europe that are still buying massive amounts of oil and natural gas from Russia, which is absurd,” Rubio said in an interaction with NBC.
“We had meetings with them again yesterday, and it has to do with their purchase of Russian oil,” he added, “And the President has the ability to do more, and he’s considering doing more because of the direction this has taken.
Previous, Rubio stated in another interview that talks with India over a trade agreement were mostly about its Russian oil acquisitions. "We met with them again yesterday, and it has to do with their buying of Russian oil," he stated in an ABC News interview, citing "a lot of progress."
India's trade minister, Piyush Goyal, is in the US to speed up negotiations that resumed last week after one-on-one talks between Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In September, Trump imposed a 25% retaliatory tariff on Indian imports from August 27, raising total tariffs to 50%, as part of attempts to push New Delhi to end its oil transactions with Russia.
Rubio made no comment on whether talks touched on the Trump administration's suggested $100,000 H-1B visa fee, which indirectly impacts Indian engineers, or US calls for India to liberalize its agriculture and dairy sectors, which New Delhi regards as a red line.
At the same time, Prime Minister Modi has taken a non-confrontational stance even as Trump and his aides offered sharp comments recently. He has encouraged "swadeshi," or India-made products, apparently as a counter-response to the tariff threat.
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