Hours after US President Donald Trump backed his decision to impose steep tariffs on India, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that New Delhi and Washington will get their bilateral issues resolved as the two countries share similar values.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Bessent also sought to downplay Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with China’s Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying it was part of the longstanding SCO framework and “largely performative.”
“This is a longstanding meeting, it’s called the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and I think it’s largely performative,” he said. “I think at the end of the day, India is the most populous democracy in the world. Their values are much closer to ours than China’s or Russia’s.”
He, however, criticised New Delhi’s continued purchase of Russian oil. “New Delhi has not been a great actor in terms of buying Russian oil and then reselling it, financing the Russian war effort in Ukraine,” Bessent said.
His remarks came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin during the SCO Summit in Tianjin, China. This was Modi’s first visit to China after seven years.
The US media and foreign policy experts have slammed President Trump for imposing steep tariffs on India and alienating the country which has long been at the centre of America’s strategy to counter China in the Indian subcontinent.
However, after Modi’s meeting with Xi and Putin, Trump defended his actions, saying the relationship between the US and India has been one-sided for decades as the latter charged high tariffs on American products.
“What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us. In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest “client,” but we sell them very little – Until now a totally one- sided relationship, and it has been for many decades,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“The reason is that India has charged us, until now, such high tariffs, the most of any country, that our businesses are unable to sell into India. It has been a totally one-sided disaster!” he continued.
Trump further claimed that India has now offered to cut tariffs to zero.
“…They have now offered to cut their tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago. Just some simple facts for people to ponder!!!” he added.