White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters at the White House on August 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday (August 19, 2025) said that U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on India to bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.
“The President has put tremendous public pressure to bring this war to a close. He has taken actions as you seen sanctions on India and other actions as well. He has made himself very clear that he wants to see this war end,” she added.
Earlier, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday (August 19, 2025) accused India of “profiteering” by reselling Russian oil while sparing China for the same, saying it has “diversified inputs of their oil.”
The remarks came amid strain in India-U.S. relations after Mr. Trump imposed tariffs totalling 50% on India. This includes 25% for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil that will come into effect from August 27.
While replying to a question on CNBC on the different treatment of China and India for purchasing Russian oil, Mr. Bessent said China’s oil imports from Russia have increased only 3% post the Russia-Ukraine war, while India’s oil imports from Russia have increased over 40%.
“China’s importing (Russian oil) is suboptimal. If you go back and look pre- 2022, pre-invasion (of Ukraine by Russia), 13% of China’s oil was already coming from Russia; now it’s 16%, so China has diversified inputs of their oil,” said Mr. Bessent.
Mr. Bessent added that “less than one per cent” of Indian oil was coming from Russia pre-invasion “and now I believe it’s up to 42%”.
“India is just profiteering; they are reselling… They made 16 billion in excess profits… some of the richest families in India. This is a completely different thing,” added Bessent. He further said that this “Indian arbitrage, buying cheap oil and reselling it as a product, has just sprung up during the war… is just unacceptable.”
Mr. Bessent made similar comments last week ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting. In an interview with Bloomberg, he said if “things don’t go well” between Trump and Putin at the summit meeting, then secondary sanctions on India for purchasing Russian oil could go up.
India has called the tariffs “unjustified and unreasonable”.
Trump ended India-Pakistan conflict, says White House
The White House once again claimed that Mr. Trump has ended the military conflict between India and Pakistan.
“The President is using the might of American strength to demand that respect from our allies, our friends, and our adversaries all around the world,” Ms. Leavitt said at a press briefing.
She said that it was seen not only in the progress with Russia and Ukraine but also “in the closing of seven global conflicts around the world”.
“We’ve seen it with the end of the conflict between India and Pakistan, which could have resulted in a nuclear war if we had not had a President who believed in the strength and the leverage that comes with the job of being the President of the United States of America,” Ms. Leavitt said.
In an answer to another question, Ms. Leavitt said that Mr. Trump used trade “in a very powerful way as leverage” to bring the India-Pakistan conflict to an end.
Since May 10, when Mr. Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim over 40 times that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan.
India has been consistently maintaining that the understanding on cessation of hostilities with Pakistan was reached following direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two militaries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said in Parliament that no leader of any country asked India to stop Operation Sindoor.
Published – August 20, 2025 08:29 am IST
