India Slams Trump Aide's 'Brahmins Profiteering' Justification for Tariffs

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has rejected the charge of Peter Navarro, the trade advisor of US President Donald Trump, who claimed that business elites in India are benefitting from the cheaper oil sourced from Russia.

"We have seen the inaccurate and misleading statements made by Mr. (Peter) Navarro and obviously, we reject them," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a press briefing on Friday.

Navarro, in remarks that received criticism, had said that "Brahmins are profiteering" at the expense of Indians. “India’s big oil lobby has turned the largest democracy in the world into a massive refining hub and oil money laundromat for the Kremlin,” he told Fox News on Monday.

The White House advisor listed this as one of the reasons why the Trump administration has slapped Indian imports with an additional 25% tariffs, taking the cumulative levy to 50%.

Navarro, last week, had went on to describe the Ukraine war as "Modi's war", saying that the fuel purchase by India is supporting Russia amid its miliary offensive in Ukraine. This, he added, leads to Ukraine approaching Washington for more aid to fund its defence.

“Everybody in America loses because of what India is doing. Consumers, businesses, workers lose because India’s high tariffs cost us jobs, and factories, and income and higher wages. And then the taxpayers lose, because we’ve got to fund Modi’s war,” Navarro had said on Aug. 27, while speaking to Bloomberg.

The Indian foreign ministry, however, said New Delhi is hopeful of an early end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. "We welcome all recent efforts towards establishing peace in Ukraine. We hope that all parties will proceed constructively. India supports an early end to the conflict and the establishment of lasting peace," the MEA spokesperson said.

The press briefing came minutes after Trump took to social media to say that "we've lost India and Russia to the deepest, darkest China". Alongside his post, he shared an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

On Trump's remarks, Jaiswal said, ""I have no comments to offer on this post at this time."