India is once again caught at a critical juncture in its foreign policy. The provocation? A renewed threat of punitive tariffs from Donald Trump, targeting India’s continued imports of Russian crude. Trump’s latest attacks may have largely come via social media, but their implications are anything but trivial. At stake is not just $31 billion of India’s export relationship with the US, but a broader question of whether New Delhi’s assertive economic sovereignty can withstand pressure from a re-assertive West.India’s oil trade with Russia, intensified after the Ukraine conflict, has long been a quiet source of Western unease. Now it’s under glaring scrutiny. Washington’s ire stems from the view that India is helping Russia circumvent sanctions by refining and exporting oil products derived from Russian crude. Yet this trade isn’t simply a backchannel to help Moscow. In a fragile global energy landscape, it’s also a stabiliser.
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