The U.S. is a major importer of Indian products made from Russian oil By Omkar Khandekar , Brent Jones

 MUMBAI, India — Tariffs on many Indian-origin goods entering the United States have now been doubled to 50%. While India has long been seen by the U.S. as a bulwark against China, Indian goods now face some of the highest import taxes of products made anywhere in the world.

 The Trump administration asserts that the additional tariff is punishment for India's alleged funding and profiting off the Ukraine war by becoming a leading buyer of Russian crude oil at a discount and selling oil products the world over

 In a recent interview on Bloomberg Television, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro doubled down on the accusation that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was financing the Kremlin's "war machine," even calling the Russia-Ukraine conflict "Modi's war."

But while a majority of the oil that India imports is for its own use, Indian refineries also export oil products. An NPR analysis found that the U.S. is one of their biggest customers.

 

The U.S. bought oil products worth an estimated $1.4 billion from India between January and July of this year, says the Finnish think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

According to shipping data sourced by CREA, more than 90% of the Indian oil products imported by the U.S. came from the Reliance Industries refinery, owned by Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The data also shows that the Reliance refinery gets nearly half its crude oil from Russia.

That means the U.S. is buying fuel made directly or indirectly from Russian oil, according to Isaac Levi, a researcher at CREA.

 The U.S. is among India's top customers for refined oil

Between Jan. 1 and July 31, 2025, India exported 35.5 million metric tons of refined oil products. About 10% has gone to the United Arab Emirates, and about 6% to the United States.