‘Short answer is yes’: US Trade Representative Greer says India has started winding down on Russian oil purchases
India-US trade deal: “They get oil from Russia, they refine it and they sell the gas to the Europeans. Europe and India were essentially underwriting Russia’s war against Ukraine," said Greer.
- Feb 11, 2026,
- Updated Feb 11, 2026 9:52 AM IST
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that India has started winding down on its purchases of Russian oil. He said that while India has started making changes now, it was underwriting the Russian war against Ukraine, along with the Europeans, through the purchase of Russian oil.
When asked if India was actually going to shift away from buying Russian oil and committing to buy $500 billion in US energy, aircraft and technology in the next five years, Greer said, “The short answer is yes.”
In an interview with Fox News, Greer said, “They have already started winding down the purchases of Russian energy products. They have started ramping back up purchases of American energy and energy from other sources. We have talked to them about oil from Venezuela. Remember, before 2022 the Indians did not really procure Russian oil. So it’s really an artefact of the Russia-Ukraine war and the discounted oil they could get.”
This comes as the White House quietly made changes to the fact sheet on the India-US trade deal. Among the other changes, it altered the language of the terms to state that India only intended to – changing from the earlier ‘committed’ to – buy $500 billion of US energy and goods.
Greer said India also decided to bring down some of the digital services taxes – which was, indeed mentioned in the earlier version of the fact sheet – but since then has been changed to merely “negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules”.
“They get oil from Russia, they refine it and they sell the gas to the Europeans. Europe and India were essentially underwriting Russia’s war against Ukraine. But India is really committed, they have started expanding some of their commitment with respect to purchases, they have taken down some digital services taxes, they are moving tariffs around, this is going to be a very important deal and it is going to reverberate for many years to come,” he said, reiterating what Secretary for the Department of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have repeated multiple times.
The US upon announcement of the trade deal, also brought down tariffs on India to 18 per cent, “in recognition of India’s commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil”, as per the fact sheet.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that India has started winding down on its purchases of Russian oil. He said that while India has started making changes now, it was underwriting the Russian war against Ukraine, along with the Europeans, through the purchase of Russian oil.
When asked if India was actually going to shift away from buying Russian oil and committing to buy $500 billion in US energy, aircraft and technology in the next five years, Greer said, “The short answer is yes.”
In an interview with Fox News, Greer said, “They have already started winding down the purchases of Russian energy products. They have started ramping back up purchases of American energy and energy from other sources. We have talked to them about oil from Venezuela. Remember, before 2022 the Indians did not really procure Russian oil. So it’s really an artefact of the Russia-Ukraine war and the discounted oil they could get.”
This comes as the White House quietly made changes to the fact sheet on the India-US trade deal. Among the other changes, it altered the language of the terms to state that India only intended to – changing from the earlier ‘committed’ to – buy $500 billion of US energy and goods.
Greer said India also decided to bring down some of the digital services taxes – which was, indeed mentioned in the earlier version of the fact sheet – but since then has been changed to merely “negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules”.
“They get oil from Russia, they refine it and they sell the gas to the Europeans. Europe and India were essentially underwriting Russia’s war against Ukraine. But India is really committed, they have started expanding some of their commitment with respect to purchases, they have taken down some digital services taxes, they are moving tariffs around, this is going to be a very important deal and it is going to reverberate for many years to come,” he said, reiterating what Secretary for the Department of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have repeated multiple times.
The US upon announcement of the trade deal, also brought down tariffs on India to 18 per cent, “in recognition of India’s commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil”, as per the fact sheet.