The India-flagged oil tanker Desh Ujaala is pictured within the Gulf waters close to Al-Basrah Oil Terminal (ABOT), about 50 kilometres offshore of Iraq’s southern Faw peninsula, on August 5, 2025.
Hussein Faleh | AFP | Getty Photos
U.S. President Donald Trump stated Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi informed him New Delhi will cease shopping for oil from Russia, although the transfer will take time.
“[Modi] assured me at the moment that they won’t be shopping for oil from Russia. That is an enormous cease.” Trump stated on the press briefing within the Oval Workplace. “Now we have to get China to do the identical factor.”
He added that Washington was sad with New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude as a result of it allowed Moscow to proceed waging its “ridiculous conflict” in Ukraine.
Nonetheless, the U.S. president additionally stated that the halt won’t be fast, and there can be “somewhat little bit of a course of,” with out giving a transparent timeline.
India’s exterior affairs ministry stated Friday that the nation’s oil import choices are pushed by efforts to guard customers by guaranteeing secure vitality costs and securing provides.
The ministry’s precedence was to “safeguard the pursuits of the Indian shopper in a risky vitality situation,” Exterior Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated in an announcement.
He added that India’s import insurance policies are guided “completely” by that purpose.
Jaiswal stated that India has hunted for years to increase vitality commerce with the U.S. “This has steadily progressed within the final decade,” he stated, including that “the present Administration has proven curiosity in deepening vitality cooperation with India. Discussions are ongoing.”
India and Russian crude
India’s imports of Russian oil have been a sticking level within the relationship between Washington and New Delhi. Trump slapped extra tariffs of 25% on India again in August, elevating the entire levy to 50%, whereas India has known as out the U.S. for its commerce with Russia.
“If India would not purchase [Russian] oil, it makes [ending the war] a lot simpler,” Trump stated. “They assured me inside a brief time period, they won’t be shopping for oil from Russia, and they’re going to return to Russia after the conflict is over.”
On Thursday, Brent crude futures climbed 0.82% to $62.43 a barrel by 10:31 p.m. ET, whereas U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures climbed 0.89% to $58.79.
India is among the largest consumers of Russian oil. Knowledge from analysis agency Kpler exhibits Russia exports about 3.35 million barrels of crude per day, with India taking about 1.7 million and China 1.1 million.
New Delhi has defended these purchases, with Vitality Minister Hardeep Singh Puri telling CNBC in July that New Delhi helped stabilize international vitality costs and was inspired by the U.S. to take action.
“If individuals or international locations had stopped shopping for at that stage, the worth of oil would have gone as much as 130 {dollars} a barrel. That was a scenario through which we have been suggested, together with by our mates in america, to please purchase Russian oil, however throughout the value cap,” Puri stated.
Russian gross sales of crude oil have been positioned beneath a value cap by the G7 nations and the European Union since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
That value cap, set at $47.6 per barrel, goals to restrict Moscow’s income from oil exports, constricting the nation’s capacity to finance its conflict in Ukraine.
