Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has criticised US rhetoric on tariffs and said that such pressure will not succeed and “ancient civilisations” such as India and China will not yield to ultimatums.
Speaking at ‘The Great Game’ programme of Russia’s main Channel 1 TV, Lavrov explained how the “demands” that the US has put forth for countries like China and India to stop purchasing Russian energy are pushing the countries further away. “It forces them to look for new energy markets, new resources, and forces them to pay more”, the Russian minister said.
Over the past few weeks, Trump and his top officials have criticised India for buying oil from Russia and said that India was funding the war in Ukraine, a charge New Delhi denies.
Lavrov cautioned the US that there has been “moral and political” opposition related to the approach chosen by them. “Both China and India are ancient civilisations, and to use this language with them, ‘either stop doing what I don’t like, or I’ll impose tariffs on you’ well, that won’t work.”
Amid threats of new sanctions on Russia, Lavrov said he does not see any problem.
“Frankly speaking, I don’t see any problem with the new sanctions imposed on Russia. An enormous amount of sanctions, unprecedented for that period, were imposed during President Donald Trump’s first term,” he said.
“We have started to draw conclusions from the situation when the West imposed these sanctions. Later, during President Joe Biden’s term, sanctions were used as a replacement for any diplomatic effort. There was no search for a compromise,” Lavrov said.
India has described the US action as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”. Defending its purchase of Russian crude oil, India has been maintaining that its energy procurement is driven by national interest and market dynamics.
Although the Trump administration has not yet imposed tariffs on China for its purchase of Russian oil, the US president has been pushing for it.