Bessent Defends 25% Secondary Tariff on India
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the plan to impose higher tariffs on India over its Russian oil purchases, but not on China, arguing that India's purchase patterns shifted sharply after the invasion of Ukraine.
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"What I would call the Indian arbitrage -- buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product -- has just sprung up during the war, which is unacceptable," he said on CNBC Aug. 19.
"They are just profiteering. They are reselling," he said. "They've made 16 billion in excess profits."
He said that before the invasion, 13% of China's oil was Russian and is now 16%, whereas for India, it went from less than 1% to more than 40%.
"China importing it is suboptimal," he said, but not the same as what India has done.
India said in early August that it "began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability."