Washington DC: A day after US President Donald Trump waived several sanctions related to Russian fuel sales that were to take effect under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday (local time) described India as an important ally whose energy needs to be considered before putting any tariffs or sanctions in place.
The law, which has now been paused, would have imposed tariffs of up to 100% on goods brought into the US from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or gas which includes India and China.
Rubio who is scheduled to visit India and more importantly Jamnagar, home to one of the world's largest refineries, later this month, said that the US President wants to use a 60-day window to analyse what imposing the tariffs would mean.
"These sanctions were not just sanctions on Russia. They include tariffs on a number of countries-India, for example, and others. And so I think the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyse what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the U.S. economy," Rubio said.
"You've got countries like India, for example, that have voluntarily diversified their energy portfolio, but are still getting a substantial amount of energy from Russia because it's hard to pivot from one day to the next. But they're also an important ally and partner of the United States. So we need that period of time to sort of study all this and figure out what the right combination is," he added.
Rubio said that the US President was also taking into account the changing geopolitical situation since the Lindsey Graham bill was brought into law, especially with the increase in conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi militia.
"I think when the bill was passed, one of the reasons the waivers were put in there is understanding that they would need some period of time to study this, given all the different things that are that are going on in the world right now, including the pressure on global energy supplies that are happening not just because of Iran and not just because of the Straits of Hormuz, but increasingly because of the Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia, and because of the war with Ukraine and Russia, where energy infrastructure is being hit, and so that's having an impact on global prices as well," he said.
On Friday, Trump invoked Section 115 of the Graham Act, which authorises the President to waive the application of any sanctions provision with respect to a foreign person, any restriction with respect to a person, and any duty under the law.
"I have submitted to the Congress a certification that the issuance of such a waiver is in the national interests of the United States and a report explaining the basis for the certification, consistent with section 115(b) of the Graham Act," Trump said in the order.
Trump waived the application of any duties provided for in sections 112 and 113 of the Act, which allowed Trump to increase the rate of duty on all goods imported into the United States from Russia to a rate of up to 500 per cent ad valorem (relative to the value). It also allowed a duty up to 100 per cent ad valorem from the five largest importers of Russian-origin crude oil or natural gas.
This came after Trump announced a diesel deal with Russia, under which he said Russia would immediately supply more than 3,00,000 tonnes of diesel fuel, followed by another 5,00,000 tonnes during November and 1 million tonnes immediately thereafter.