Navarro: Brahmins Profiting at Expense of Indian People
Navarro has been consistently targeting India over the last few days following a major downturn in ties between Washington and New Delhi over President Donald Trump's policies on trade and tariffs.
Chennai: Continuing his tirade against India, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has kicked up another controversy by commenting that “Brahmins” in India were profiteering in Russian oil business.
“Brahmins are profiteering at the expense of the Indian people”, he said in an interview given to Fox News. When asked if imposition of tariffs in India was unfair given China also plays the same role and whether it was enough to impact Russia, “Modi’s a great leader. But I don’t know why he’s getting into bed with Putin and Xi Jinping when he is the leader of the biggest democracy in the world. I would just say, the Indian people need to understand what is going on. Brahmins are profiteering by buying Russian oil at the expense of the Indian people.”
While a controversy has erupted over the use of the word ‘Brahmins, many on X commented that Navarro referred to the elite as in the case of the ‘Boston Brahmins’. Pointing out that India’s purchase of Russian oil was not significant before the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, Navarro said: “What happened? Well, the Russian refiners went in and got into bed with big oil India. Putin gives Modi a discount on the crude. They refine it and they ship it to Europe, Africa and Asia at a big premium and they make a ton of money,” he said.
Navarro is the chief trade adviser to US President Donald Trump and instrumental to the ongoing trade war with China, imposition of tariffs on India and other countries. Earlier, Navarro had called India ‘Kremlin’s laundromat’ and referred to the Russia-Ukraine war as ‘Modi’s war’. Navarro previously served in the first Trump administration, first as the director of the White House National Trade Council, then as the director of the new Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.
Navarro is a professor emeritus of economics and public policy at the Paul Merage School of Business of the University of California, Irvine, with a PhD from Harvard University. In 2024, he was sentenced to four months in jail, becoming the first former White House official imprisoned on a contempt-of-Congress conviction.