Washington has been using trade talks to persuade New Delhi to give up on Russian supplies
FILE PHOTO: US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor © Getty Images / Anna Moneymaker
[RT] The US is in “active negotiations”
with India, which it hopes to persuade to import oil from Venezuela
instead of Russia, the American ambassador in New Delhi has said.
The
US issued licenses to two trading houses to distribute oil produced in
Venezuela after kidnapping the Latin American nation’s leader, Nicolas
Maduro, in early January and reaching a supply deal with interim
president Delcy Rodriguez.
Washington has been using the ongoing
trade negotiations to persuade New Delhi to give up on Russian oil
supplies. India and China became the main buyers of the crude after the
US and EU imposed sanctions on Moscow over the escalation of the Ukraine
conflict in 2022.
US Ambassador Sergio Gor told journalists in New Delhi on Friday that “the [US] Department of Energy is speaking to the [Indian] Ministry of Energy” about buying Venezuelan oil, and “we’re hoping to have some news of that very soon.”
Earlier
this month, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order
eliminating the 25% tariff imposed on India last August over importing
Russian oil. Trump claimed that he did so because New Delhi “agreed to stop” deliveries from Moscow.
“On the oil, there’s an agreement... We have seen India diversify on their oil. There is a commitment. This is not about India. The US doesn’t want anyone buying Russian oil,” the ambassador said.
New
Delhi never confirmed that it had promised Washington it would abandon
Russian oil. Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said during the
Munich Security Conference last week that his country’s leaders pursue “strategic autonomy” and make decisions in the energy sector that “they feel are in their best interest,” based on an analysis of costs and risks.
Moscow
also said that it has no information about India putting Russian crude
deliveries on hold. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
told journalists on Wednesday that oil purchases are driven by
commercial feasibility. “I think that neither we nor you have a reason to believe that India has revised its approach,” she stressed.
Earlier in February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the US of using “coercive measures that are incompatible with fair competition” in its push to control the main international energy routes and “dominate the world economy.”