‘Big boy India conveyed it won’t be bossed on oil purchase’: US journalist slams Trump tariffs
The journalist, Rick Sanchez, labeled US tariffs on India for Russian oil purchases as disrespectful, arguing that India not a “schoolchild”.
An American journalist on Sunday said India is “the big boy”, “not a schoolchild”, that conveyed that the US cannot boss it over where to buy or not buy oil from, prompting a “cataclysmic moment”. He was referring to the tariffs imposed on Indian goods by United States President Donald Trump.
American journalist and political commentator Rick Sanchez called the US decision to impose tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil is a “disrespectful and ignorant policy”.
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US President Donald Trump has imposed 25 per cent tariffs on India plus a penalty of 25 per cent additional duties for Russian oil purchase, taking the total levies to 50 per cent.
Rick Sanchez, in an ANI news agency interview, said the US decision on secondary tariffs is “extremely preposterous in the eyes of most people” and amounts to treating India like schoolchildren who need to be told what to do.
“It’s a disrespectful and ignorant policy [of the Trump administration]… Because they don’t understand the underpinnings of what caused the Ukraine war from the standpoint of Russia… You have to take that into account, which PM Modi has to some regard… The disrespectful part comes when you start treating a country like India with its history, resources and capabilities like a schoolchild. Too many people think India started with Gandhi… However, what India has done for the world is every bit as important, if not more so, as what Europe and Mesopotamia have achieved… It’s almost like they’re treating India like they’re schoolchildren who need to be told what to do. India’s the big boy, not a schoolchild,” he said in the interview.
The journalist said it was a cataclysmic, transformational moment when India told the US it can’t be directed who to buy oil from.
“When India looked back at the US and said, ‘You will not tell us who we can or cannot buy oil from, ‘ it was such a cataclysmic, transformational moment. Historians will one day look back and say, that’s when power started to truly decline from the old European US that was running the World since World War II… That doesn’t mean the United States is in a downfall. From a power standpoint, it’s going to shift to the global South, in which the premier countries are going to be India and China, along with Russia, South Africa and Brazil,” Sanchez said when asked about Trump imposing a penalty on India for purchasing Russian oil.
On Trump’s repeated claims that he brokered ceasefire between India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor citing trade, Sanchez said, “Is Trump the kind of person who sometimes makes decisions based on vendettas, grudges, and non-scientific thinking? Yes, of course he is,” Sanchez said, when asked about Jefferies’ report.
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American multinational investment bank and financial services company Jefferies said in a recent report that 50 per cent tariffs imposed by the United States on Indian goods are largely a result of President Donald Trump’s “personal pique” at not being allowed to mediate in the India-Pakistan conflict.
“One of the things that many American leaders begrudge today, and it’s worse today than it’s been in the past, is a failure to want to understand the genesis, the history, and the culture of any problem. Their reaction is often based on what they saw on cable news… Would I be surprised if we found out down the line that somehow he felt personally insulted by the fact that PM Modi didn’t hail him as the saviour of the Pakistan-India conflict? Does it fit the way Trump has carried out some of his policies? Yeah, of course it does,” Sanchez said.
