Ukraine conflict is ‘Modi's war,’ claims White House

New York/Washington: The Ukraine conflict is “Modi’s war”, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has alleged, saying the “road to peace” runs partly “right through New Delhi”.

Navarro, President Donald Trump’s Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing, claimed that “India is helping feed the Russian war machine”.

“Everybody in America loses because of what India is doing. The consumers and businesses and everything lose, and workers lose because India's high tariffs cost us jobs and factories and income and higher wages, and then the taxpayers lose, because we got to fund Modi's war,” Navarro said.

When asked by the host if he meant “Putin’s war”, Navarro reiterated that it is “Modi’s war”.

“I mean Modi's war, because the road to peace runs, in part, through New Delhi,” he added.

Trump has imposed an additional 25 per cent tariffs on India for its purchases of Russian oil, levies that came into effect from Wednesday, bringing the total duties slapped on India to 50 per cent. Navarro claimed it is “real easy” for the 25 per cent additional tariffs imposed on India to go away and for that New Delhi has to stop buying Russian oil.

“India can get 25 per cent off tomorrow if it stops buying Russian oil and helping to feed their war machine,” Navarro said.

Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a great leader”, Navarro said he was puzzled as “this is a mature democracy with intelligent people running it, and they look us bald-faced in the eye on the tariff part and say, ‘we don't have the highest tariffs in the world’, when, in fact, they do”.