‘India hate at play’: Kanwal Sibal slams Navarro, reminds US of billions its firms earn in India

Former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal on Monday slammed White House trade advisor Peter Navarro for his take on New Delhi's purchase of Russian oil. In his op-ed for The Financial Times, Navarro termed the increase in India's purchase of Russian oil since the invasion of Ukraine as "opportunistic and deeply corrosive" of a global effort to isolate Russia. 

Sibal, who served as the Foreign Secretary of India under late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that Navarro's take was "a vicious attack animated by India hate". He added that no normal person would hold India responsible for the continued violence and killings in Ukraine. 

He also flagged the West's hypocrisy on the matter of Russian imports and said that the US is also buying uranium and palladium from Russia. Sibal mentioned that Europe and Japan are buying LNG from Russia in large quantities. 

"Putin noted at Alaska that US trade with Russia had increased by 20 per cent after Trump became President. In 2024, China imported roughly 108 million metric tons of crude oil from Russia, making Russia China's largest crude oil supplier. Turkey is the world's largest buyer of Russian refined petroleum products. It is a hub for Russia sanctions busting." 

Furthermore, Sibal reminded Navarro of how American firms earn billions in India. He added that US companies supposedly earn an estimated $85 billion yearly from the Indian market, including revenues from goods and services as well as profits from investments and other activities. 

But does this figure capture the entirety of US companies' earnings from India? As per Sibal: "This figure, however, doesn't include earnings from areas like education, digital services, consulting, intellectual property, and defense sales. When these are factored in, the total US surplus with India is estimated to be around $35-40 billion." 

Sibal, who has also served as the Indian Ambassador to France and Russia, said that Navarro deprecates earnings from refined oil products by a couple of big business houses. He added that the White House trade advisor should look at the profits that American MNCs make from foreign operations. 

Sibal mentioned that many of the largest US-based MNCs including Intel, Mondelez, Coca-Cola, and Apple have close to or more than two-thirds of their total sales outside the US. "Other large American MNCs generate more than 50% of their sales overseas, e.g., Chevron (53.9%), Pfizer (53.9%), Alphabet (53.8%), General Electric (58.7%), Procter and Gamble (57.8%), and IBM (53.0%)," he wrote towards the end of the post.