Scott Bessent Says India Is Profiteering From Russian Crude Oil Imports, Calls It 'Unacceptable'

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday morning, Bessent defended the Trump administration’s decision to slap punitive tariffs of 25% on India for importing Russian crude oil, which stacked on top of 25% levies in place.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday accused India of “profiteering” from Russian crude oil purchases, calling the Narendra Modi government’s policy “unacceptable.”

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday morning, Bessent defended the Trump administration’s decision to slap punitive tariffs of 25% on India for importing Russian crude oil, on top of the 25% tariffs that it had already slapped in line with President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ levies.

“If you go back and look now, I believe India had less than 1% of their oil [imported from Russia], and now I believe it’s up to 42%. So India is just profiteering, they’re reselling, they’ve made $16 billion in excess profits,” said Bessent, while defending the Trump administration’s decision to spare China.

During the interview, Bessent said China’s crude oil imports from Russia stood at 16% of its total crude oil imports, adding that the Xi Jinping-led country had diversified its sources of crude oil over the past three years of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“This.. I’d call Indian arbitrage, buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product, [it] has just sprung up during the war, which is unacceptable,” Bessent said in the interview. His comments come a day after President Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, called for a stop to Indian purchases of Russian crude oil, in an opinion piece in The Financial Times.

“In effect, India acts as a global clearinghouse for Russian oil, converting embargoed crude into high-value exports while giving Moscow the dollars it needs,” Navarro said, calling India’s Russian crude oil purchases “opportunistic.”

Meanwhile, U.S. equities edged lower in Wednesday’s pre-market session. At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was down 0.05%, while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) fell 0.16%. Retail sentiment around the S&P 500 ETF on Stocktwits was in the ‘neutral’ territory.

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