Image Source: Agencies

Aug 6, 2025: President Donald Trump has said that he doesn't know anything about the US imports of Russian uranium, fertilisers and chemicals.
While responding to a question regarding India's statement regarding American imports of these commodities on Tuesday, Trump made the remark. "I have no knowledge of it. I'd have to check, but we'll get back to you on that,” Trump said, adding that he will soon decide on tariffs to be imposed on nations buying Russian energy.
India has been accused by Trump of buying a lot of Russian oil and selling it for a lot of money, and he has threatened to raise US tariffs on it "substantially." India on Monday mounted an unusually sharp counterattack on the US and the European Union for their “unjustified and unreasonable” targeting of New Delhi for its procurement of Russian crude oil.
Firmly rejecting the criticism, India pointed out the double standards in targeting it on the issue and said both the US and the EU are continuing their trade relations with Russia.
“Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement on Monday night.
The Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy, but also fertilisers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel, and machinery and transport equipment, the MEA said.
It went on to say that the United States "continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilizers, and chemicals." The MEA stated, "In this context, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable." Trump said, "but we'll be doing quite a bit of that," despite never specifying a percentage, in response to a subsequent question regarding his threat to impose 100% tariffs on all nations that purchase Russian energy, including China. We'll see what happens over the next fairly short period of time”.
He said that the US has a “meeting with Russia” on Wednesday, without giving further details on where and what the meeting will entail. "We are going to wait and see what happens. That decision will be made at that time. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said in an interview with CNBC that India has not been a good trading partner and announced he is “going to raise” tariffs on India “very substantially over the next 24 hours” because New Delhi is buying Russian oil and "fuelling the Ukraine war machine".