‘Particularly caution against…’: Govt’s stern response to NATO chief’s ‘100% secondary tariffs’ threat

In a stern response to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who threatened India, Brazil and China against doing business with Russia, New Delhi asked the alliance to not indulge in double-standards.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that for India, securing energy needs is top priority. "We have seen reports on the subject and are closely following the developments. Let me reiterate that securing the energy needs of our people is understandably an overriding priority for us. In this endeavour, we are guided by what is on offer in the markets, and by the prevailing global circumstances. We would particularly caution against any double standards on the matter," he said.

WHAT RUTTE SAID

Rutte had warned these three countries of 100 per cent secondary tariffs if they continued buying crude oil from Moscow.

"My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard…So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way," he said.

Jaiswal said that the government is closely following developments and the “articulations that are being made” when asked about Trump threatening 100 per cent tariff on Russian exports and ‘secondary tariffs’ on countries with trade links with Moscow.

RUSSIAN CRUDE OIL

The NATO chief remarks came after Trump threatened further sanctions on Russia for its war on Ukraine. Trump said they are going to put “severe tariffs” on Russia if they don’t end the war in 50 days.

Not only the government, ex-bureaucrats have also slammed Rutte’s remarks. Former envoy Kanwal Sibal said Rutte was “out of his geopolitical depth” to warn India, China and Brazil.

“Are these three countries now part of NATO’s out of area remit? This man hasn’t thought about the implications of what he is saying. Turkey imports huge amounts of Russian oil. Will the NATO Secy Gen press for sanctions on a NATO member. Conveniently silent on this. The EU still imports 7% of its oil from Russia. Will Hungary and Slovakia be sanctioned too. They are also NATO members. Rutte is silent on this too,” he said.

Trump had separately been critical of the BRICS as a grouping and threatened other nations against joining the bloc. He said such nations would attract an additional 10 per cent apart from their tariffs.