Peter Navarro, the White House trade advisor has once again attacked India, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in China on Monday. Navarro said it was a ‘shame’ to see PM Modi meeting Jinping and Putin.
“It was a shame to see Modi getting in bed with Xi Jinping and Putin. I am not sure what he is thinking. We hope he comes around to seeing that he needs to be with us and not Russia,” Navarro told reporters on 1 September.
Navarro, White House Senior Counsellor for trade and manufacturing, has been attacked India while justifying US President Donald Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs and even described New Delhi as “nothing but a laundromat for the Kremlin.”
He even went on to say earlier that “Brahmins are profiteering at the expense of the Indian people.”
Navarro’s latest statement comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modimade public shows of solidarity with Chinese and Russian leaders amid trade pressure from Washington.
PM Modi was in China for a summit of more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries at the SCO summit on August 31 and September 1. Jinping, speaking at the Summit, pressed his vision for a new global security and economic order that prioritizes the “Global South,” in a direct challenge to the US.
Trump tariffs on India after it refused to stop buying Russianoilin defiance of his efforts to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine have strained India-US relations in recent months.
So, the images and vidoes of Putin, Jinping and PM Moditogether at the SCO summit suggested bonhomie and solidarity.
Who is Peter Navarro?
Navarro, 76, has been criticising India while defending 50 per cent US tariffs on Indian goods coming into effect on 27 August.
Last week, in an interview withBloomberg TV, he called the Russia-Ukraine war ‘Modi’s War’ and said, the road to peace in Ukraine runs at least “partly right through New Delhi,” while criticising India’s purchase of oil from Russia.
In another post on X, Navarro shared portions of his article in theFinancial Timesin which he described India’s foreign policy as ‘strategic freeloading’ and said Trump was confronting ‘this madness.’
It was a shame to see Modi getting in bed with Xi Jinping and Putin.
Navarro, like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, is a known Donald Trump loyalist. He has been with President Trump since the Republicans’ first presidential campaign in 2016.