What Form Will The Compromise Between India And The US Take?
So, now that we have established that the India-US ties have always been like a pendulum swinging from one side to another, let us get to the business of trying to understand where they are headed from the present juncture.
Truth be told, on the question of worsening India-US relations, the Author has been very late in the game, as quite a lot has become clear by now, which means there is not much left to try and gauge. Nevertheless, to bring this article to its logical conclusion, it is necessary to briefly discuss what could a compromise between India and the US could look like and when it may happen.
So far, the Trump administration does not appear to be backing off from trying to push India toward reducing its oil imports from Russia. The most significant indication of this in recent weeks was given by Sergio Gor, a close aid of President Trump who is currently the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office and was appointed by Trump in late August as the US’ ambassador to India as well as Special Evoy for South and Central Asian affairs.
“Getting India to stop buying Russian oil is a top priority for this administration,” Gor said while answering the questions from members of the US Foreign Relations Committee. “President Trump has made it crystal clear that India must stop buying Russian oil,” he added.
Also, before that, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also said on September 12th that trade negotiations would be resolved “once” India stops its purchase of Russian oil, indicating that this was a prerequisite for any agreement.
That said, Gor, during his hearing before the US Foreign Relations Committee also said that India and the US are “not that far apart” on the issue of trade deal and expressed hope that all the outstanding issues “will get resolved in the next few weeks”.
Now, from India’s side, there have been indications since July that Indian oil refiners have been slowly diversifying their purchases of crude oil with reports of both state-owned and private refiners buying oil from other countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Azerbaijan and Nigeria.1
Per the data from the ship-tracking firm Kpler, Russian crude oil deliveries to India were tracking at around 1.45 million bpd in August and 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in September (till September 12), lower than the average of 1.774 million bpd seen in the first seven months of 2025.
That said, it is important to bear in mind that this shift from the Russian oil is not entirely driven by the Trump administration’s tariffs on Indian goods but mainly due to the gradual decline in the advantage of the discounted Russian oil purchases for India since 2022, as pointed out by a senior economic advisor the Indian government.
Nilkanth Mishra, a part- time member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, and the Chief Economist at Axis Bank as well as Head of Global Research at Axis Capital had pointed out in August that the gap between Brent crude, which is India’s standard grade, and the Urals grade which Russia exports generally, has been gradually falling, coming down to $5 from $ 30 in 2022, and the overall landing price adjusted for insurance brings that gap down to just $2.
So, according to Mishra, considering that India was importing so little from Russia only three years ago, it can easily look to make the switch to other suppliers within a few months, rather than bearing the brunt of 50 percent tarrifs on its exports to the US only to save $1 or 2 billion a year.
Now, the question is how many months is few according to Mishra because India cannot be expected to completely halt its purchases of Russian oil any time soon, as the Russian barrel is currently the cheapest one in India’s import basket and it also does not make sense to give up on the discounted oil even if it is $1-2 per barrel, only to drive up the global oil prices by suddenly increasing the demand for alternative supply.
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Overall, though, it is very likely that a compromise between India and the US could take the form of a tacit understanding, wherein the former agrees to gradually bring down its purchase of Russian crude oil through the first half of 2026 in return for the US agreeing to lower its tariffs on Indian goods.
As of writing of this article, an Indian delegation, led by Commerce and Industries Minister Piyush Goyal, has already met with the US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer and the US’ Ambassador designate to India, Sergio Gor, in between September 22-24, where the two sides agreed to try and achieve “early conclusion of a mutually beneficial Trade Agreement”, per the Indian government’s statement on September 26th.
Also, shortly after this meeting between the officials of the two sides, Greer, in a fireside chat at the Economic Club of New York, described India’s approach in trade negotiations with the US as pragmatic and noted that India understands the US objective of ending the war in Ukraine and is already diversifying its energy needs.
So, let us see what happens, which could be very soon, judging by the statements and verbal remarks of government officials from both the sides.
Tanmay Kadam is a geopolitical observer based in India. He has experience working as a Defense and International Affairs journalist for EurAsian Times. He can be contacted at tanmaykadam700@gmail.com
- Yongchang Chin, Indian Refiners Look More Widely for Oil After EU’s Russia Curbs, Bloomberg, July 28th, 2025 ↩︎