Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the US made much bigger sacrifices than the European countries in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. "We have put 25% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? The Europeans signed a trade deal with India," Bessent said, explaining that Russian oil goes to India and then Europeans buy refined products from India. "They are financing the war against themselves," Bessent said.
India and the EU will announce the 'mother of all deals' at the India-EU summit Tuesday. "I will travel to India. There is still work to do. But we are on the cusp of a historic trade agreement. Some call it the mother of all deals. One that would create a market of 2 billion people, accounting for almost a quarter of global GDP," European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos last Tuesday.
The US-India trade deal has got blocked by President Donald Trump, VP JD Vance and White House adviser Peter Navarro, a new claim has come to the surface. Republican senator Ted Cruz made this revelation at a closed-door meeting with donors. Cruz said he had been battling the White House to accept the trade agreement with India but these three people in the administration want more tariffs on India.
The India-US trade deal discussions arestill going on, with Bessent recently hinting that India's purchase of Russian crude oil has reduced sharply. “We put 25 per cent tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. And the Indian purchases, by their refineries, of Russian oil have collapsed. That is a success,” Bessent told Politico in an interview
"The tariffs are still on. I would imagine there is a path to take them off," Bessent said.
