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India and Russia agreed to boost trade ties on Thursday as their foreign ministers met in Moscow, giving little indication that US President Donald Trump’s hefty tariffs on India for buying Russian oil would disrupt their relations.
Indian goods face additional US tariffs of up to 50 percent, among the highest imposed by Washington, due to New Delhi’s increased purchases of Russian oil.
Western countries boycotting Russian crude say India’s purchases are helping to fund Moscow’s war in Ukraine. But New Delhi says its purchases are purely commercial transactions, and accuses the US and European Union of double standards, noting that they continue significant trade with Moscow themselves.
“We have good results in cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector, in the supply of Russian oil to the Indian market. And we have a mutual interest in implementing joint projects for the extraction of energy resources, including in the Russian Federation - in the Far East and on the Arctic shelf,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a joint news conference with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Jaishankar said that relations between the two countries had been among the steadiest of major nations in the world since World War Two, referring to a close friendship going back to the days of the Soviet Union.
The two countries reaffirmed their ambition to expand bilateral trade, including by increasing India’s exports to Russia, Jaishankar said, according to a statement from India’s foreign ministry.
“This (trade expansion) requires swiftly addressing non-tariff barriers and regulatory impediments,” Jaishankar said. “Enhancing Indian exports to Russia in sectors like pharmaceuticals, agriculture and textiles will certainly help to correct the current imbalance.”
Russia was able to divert its exports of oil, a significant source of state revenue, away from Europe and mainly to China and India after the West imposed sanctions on Moscow over its conflict in Ukraine.
India and China are the biggest buyers of Russia’s oil.
Russian embassy officials in New Delhi said on Wednesday that Russia expected to continue supplying oil to India despite pressure from the United States, adding that Moscow hoped trilateral talks with India and China would soon take place.