‘India’s Keyboard Minions’: Peter Navarro Doubles Down Even As Trump Signals Thaw In Trade Tiff

Peter Navarro, a senior White House official and a close aide to US President Donald Trump, doubled down on his criticism of India in the latest five-part thread on 'X'. Navarro addresses the "Community Note" that appeared on a prior post.

This comes even after U.S. President Trump said that Washington and New Delhi are continuing negotiations to resolve trade frictions. He was confident that the two countries will arrive at a successful resolution over the tariff issue.

In the first post of the thread, he asserted that "India’s keyboard minions are hijacking X’s Community Notes to bury the facts." His remarks, initially shared on social media, had drawn a "Community Note" on the platform X, prompting Navarro to double down on his position and accuse the fact-checking system of being compromised by "India’s keyboard minions."

This is in reference to a previous post in which he had claimed, "India’s sky-high tariffs cost U.S. jobs" and that "India buys Russian oil purely to profit," with the revenues fueling Russia's "war machine."

The Community Note on the earlier post had countered that India's oil purchases were for "energy security, not just profit and don't violate sanctions," and that the U.S. also imports certain Russian commodities, calling Navarro's claim "hypocritical."

Navarro's subsequent posts further double down on the Community Note. In a post from three hours after his initial statement, he claims the note's source, which is seen as an article from The Times of India, actually supports his stance.

He wrote, "But the article proved me right, admitting: India’s imports from Russia hit $67 billion in 2024—$53 billion of that was crude oil. In 2021, before Ukraine: India’s total imports from Russia were just $8.7 billion. That’s nearly an 8x jump."

He further pulled more data from the article to say, "That’s American jobs lost, and industries hollowed out. In exchange, what is India’s purported “contribution” to the U.S., boasted about in the same article? 3 million Indian students flooding into U.S. schools and American Grads undercut by cheap labor"

The statement attempts to reinforce his central argument about the scale of India's oil imports from Russia, sky-high tariffs and trade deficit. He went on to claim that the U.S. doesn’t need unfair trade with India but that India desperately needs access to U.S. markets and schools and intends to continue taking U.S. jobs. Navarro's post concluded by stating that the road to peace in Ukraine runs through New Delhi.