NEW DELHI – Indian officials said Thursday they were “not aware” of any conversation between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, appearing to contradict a claim by the American president that he had just secured a pledge from his Indian counterpart to stop buying Russian oil.
Modi “assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, which would have amounted to a significant concession from New Delhi on a central sticking point in the countries’ long-running and contentious trade negotiations.
Hours later, however, Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said in a news conference that he had no knowledge of any new conversation between the two leaders.
In a statement earlier that day, the MEA did not directly address the question of Russian oil, saying that its priority was “to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario” and that “our import policies are guided entirely by this objective.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an automated reply, it said staffing shortages from the government shutdown could lead to delayed responses.
Indian negotiators have previously told the Trump administration in private that they would be willing to cut back on oil purchases from Moscow, but couldn’t announce it publicly for fear of domestic political backlash.
The dispute over Russian crude has driven U.S.-India relations to their lowest point in decades. Despite more positive signals from both sides in recent weeks, the confusion Thursday appeared to be another example of a relationship beset by mutual misunderstanding.
India bought only small amounts of oil from Russia before the war in Ukraine. But since 2023, New Delhi has been the top purchaser of Russian seaborne crude oil – lured by discounted prices and encouraged to buy the commodity by Western nations concerned about instability in world energy markets.
In August, as trade talks between the countries stalled, Trump doubled tariffs on India to 50 percent – among the highest rates in the world – calling them a penalty for the country’s Russian oil buys. India described the move as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable,” and said its oil purchases were “based on market factors.”
In September, The Washington Post reported that Trump told U.S. negotiators he would not approve a trade agreement with New Delhi unless it slashed oil purchases from Russia. White House advisers took an increasingly hostile tone toward America’s longtime South Asian partner, accusing India of being a “laundromat for the Kremlin” and characterizing Russia’s conflict with Ukraine as “Modi’s war.”
On Wednesday, Trump reiterated that the U.S. was “not happy” with Modi for buying oil from Moscow, which he said “lets Russia continue on with this ridiculous war.” Modi’s alleged pledge was a “big stop,” Trump said, adding that he now had to get China – Russia’s largest oil customer – “to do the same thing.”
Modi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two leaders last appeared to speak on Oct. 9. Modi “congratulated” Trump on the Gaza Strip peace plan, “reviewed the good progress achieved in trade negotiations,” and said they would stay in close touch over the coming weeks, according to a statement from the Indian side. The White House did not release its own readout of the call.
Sergio Gor, the newly confirmed U.S. ambassador to India, also held meetings with Modi and other Indian officials over the past week. “I’m confident that his tenure will further strengthen the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership,” Modi posted on X, alongside a framed photo of himself and Trump in a joint news conference at the White House.
India “is not too weak” and “not too powerful,” said Happymon Jacob, founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, a nonpartisan think tank in New Delhi. It’s “behaving like a typical middle power, trying to not bow down [and] not bend the knee in front of Trump and, at the same time, not going overboard.”
India’s top buyer of Russian oil, the Reliance Industries conglomerate owned by billionaire and Modi ally Mukesh Ambani, bought $33 billion of the commodity since the war in Ukraine started, accounting for roughly 8 percent of Moscow’s crude sales over that period, The Post found. For months, the Modi government has defended the purchases as central to its global energy strategy.
Trump said India won’t be able to wind down its purchases of Russian oil “immediately,” and added that “it’s a little bit of a process, but the process is going to be over with soon.”
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