Analysis: Modi in tight spot after US demands India cease buying Putin's oil

The relationship between India and the US is facing one of its most significant challenges in decades, as the Trump administration doubles down on its demand that India must stop buying Russian oil or face punitive US tariffs.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Donald Trump has refused to cut tariffs on Indian exports to the US, as he has for other countries, and yesterday said he would significantly raise them over its purchases of cheap Russian oil, which now accounts for a third of its imported oil.

"They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine," he wrote in a post to his Truth Social network, also accusing India of selling Russian oil "on the Open Market for big profits".

In a previous social media tirade last week, he said of Russia and India: "They can take their dead economies down together."

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, his hardline deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, did not hold back, stating that Trump had made it clear it was "not acceptable for India to continue financing this [Ukraine] war by purchasing the oil from Russia".

The whiplash the last days have caused in New Delhi is palpable.

It was only in February that India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, was one of the first world leaders to be hosted by Trump and the two men embraced each other and hailed their "great friendship".

Indian officials were also adamant that Russia had not even come up in trade negotiations until Trump's public outburst.