Trump hikes tariffs on India to 50% for buying Russian oil

All eyes are on any last-minute trade updates ahead of President Trump’s tariff deadline on Thursday. The President followed through on threats to punish India for buying Russian oil.

In an executive order, Trump said “I find that the Government of India is currently directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil” and due to those purchases, imports of Indian goods into the United States “shall be subject to an additional … rate of duty of 25%.”

The order says that the newly announced 25% tariff will stack on top of the existing 25% that the US is already tariffing India. Trump said he will hit India with the tariff on Wednesday night, when his sweeping global tariffs go into effect on most US trading partners. The additional rate will take effect within 21 days.

A 50% tariff on India would be among the highest on any trading partner in the world. The only countries with tariffs as high as India’s are set to be are Brazil at 50%, Syria at 41%, Myanmar at 40% and Switzerland’s which is set at 39%.

On Tuesday, Trump told CNBC, “India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25% [tariffs] but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil. They’re fueling the war machine.”

India was the tenth-largest source of goods imports into the United States in 2024, according to Commerce Deptartment data. Consumers and businesses imported more than $87 billion worth of products. 

Some of the top imports from India include glass, metals, chemicals, plastic, rubber, machinery and mechanical equipment and farm goods.