‘Loathsome hypocrisy’: Kanwal Sibal on Navarro labelling Ukraine war as ‘Modi’s war’

Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal called out US and White House adviser Peter Navarro’s for the unwarranted tirade against India. Apart from labelling the Ukraine war as “Modi’s war”, Navarro also called India arrogant. Sibal, highlighting Washington’s duplicity, called it “loathsome hypocrisy”.

Sibal questioned Navarro’s statement, asking how is the US not being “intolerably arrogant” themselves by slamming penalty tariffs on India for buying Russian oil and defence equipment. He highlighted how the US has not put any penalty on China and the EU.

“Europe buys more energy from Russia. It is democratic too. It is all right for that democracy to fund Russia’s war?” he asked. Sibal also pointed out that the US is trying to get an energy deal made with Russia. Reports stated that there’s a possibility of Exxon Mobil re-entering Russia’s Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project. US and Russian government officials reportedly discussed several energy deals on the sidelines of negotiations that sought to achieve peace in Ukraine.

“It is sheer hypocrisy to argue that high tariffs raised by the US to build its manufacturing capacity, earn trillions of revenues, create jobs is a great policy to Make America Great Again but Indian tariffs to protect its most sensitive areas are unacceptable. US continuing to transfer US arms to Ukraine paid for by Europe is not a recipe for continuing the killings in Ukraine, but India buying oil legally from Russia as a commercial deal is? This is loathsome hypocrisy,” said Kanwal Sibal.

Navarro said the Ukraine war is Modi’s war and the road to peace runs through New Delhi. Everybody in America loses because of what India is doing, he said, adding that India’s high tariffs cost them jobs, factories, income and higher wages. “And then the taxpayers lose, because we’ve got to fund Modi’s war,” he said.

“What’s troubling to me is that the Indians are so arrogant about this. They say, ‘Oh, we don’t have higher tariffs. Oh, it’s our sovereignty. We can buy oil from anyone we want’,” he said.