Navarro expects no extension for 50 percent tariffs on India for buying Russian oil

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Thursday that he doesn’t expect President Trump to extend the timeline on doubling tariffs on India as a penalty for buying Russian oil beyond next week.

Trump is set to hit India on Aug. 27 with a 50 percent tariff, which includes a 25 percent penalty for the oil purchases that Trump has argued are helping fuel Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine.

“I see that taking place. India doesn’t appear to want to recognize its role in the bloodshed. It simply doesn’t,” Navarro told reporters at the White House.

“They don’t need oil — it’s a refining profiteering scheme,” he added. “I love India. Look, [President Narendra] Modi is a great leader. But please, please India, like, look at what is, what your role here is in the global economy and good here. It’s like, what you’re doing right now is not creating peace, it’s perpetuating the war.”

Navarro outlined that India will be hit with 25 percent “because they cheat us on trade” and 25 percent because of the oil purchases.

The top trade adviser wrote in an op-ed in the Financial Times earlier this month that “India’s dependence on Russian crude is opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world’s efforts to isolate Putin’s war economy.”

Trump is in the midst of setting up a bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to talk face-to-face about ending the war. But, Russia is sending signals that it intends to slow-walk a deal on Ukraine and tamping down any progress made at a summit at the White House earlier this week where Trump met with seven European leaders and Zelensky.