US understands why India’s buying Russian oil but we hate it: Congressman McCormick

It is evident why India continues to trade with Russia, but it is not something that America wants, said US Congressman Rich McCormick, speaking at a fireside chat at a Center for Strategic & International Studies event. He says the US “hates” that India is still buying Russian oil. 

“This is not a simple thing that we're facing down. We realise that Prime Minister Modi is extremely nationalistic, in a good way. I mean, he's looking after his country just like we look after our country. He wants to bring productivity and expansion and technologies to his country. He wants the military to be built up inside of his country. Matter of fact, there's civil laws that kind of inhibit our collaboration that are troublesome to the advancement of their military as well as our collaboration,” he said.

McCormick added: “But I understand why he's doing it. If you understand his motivations, if you understand some of the things that frustrate us…when they buy cheap Russian oil…it basically funds a war in Ukraine. We hate that.”

The Congressman said whatever PM Modi is doing, it is for the interest of the country so that the Indian economy can be expanded with cheap energy. “So, there's a lot of economical reasons that he's going to do what he's going to do. But in the end, I think he understands how important we are.”

He said India and the US are like-minded, and are collaborative. There are about a quarter million Indian students in the US. “The industry that we bring back to India, the consumption that we do of Indian goods is very important, but we need to make sure there's balance there, that there's equal buying. It's not going to be perfectly balanced, and anybody who's married understands that,” he said. 

McCormick said there has to be a fairness and capitalistic synergy. “We're the world's biggest consumer. We have a $30 trillion economy. India's not even passed Germany yet. They are about fourth, they just passed Japan. They're coming up on Germany and they're going to blow by Germany and then they're going to advance on China. But China's been crushing it since about 2015. They've been cheating their way to the top through the World Trade Organisation, which we gave in good faith, and they've abused. We want to make sure that India stays in line with good economics, good faith and good relationships, that it doesn't become an abusive relationship on either side.”