Oh, look, the U.S. is clutching its pearls again, and whining about India’s affair with Russian oil. But let’s cut through the sanctimonious fog: it is not the oil that has got Washington’s knickers in a twist. It is India’s move to sidestep the almighty dollar, and trade instead in INR, Ruble, and AED. How dare we, right? The nerve! New Delhi flexing its economic muscles and telling the petrodollar to take a hike! Outrageous sir, I kid you not.
Since Russia’s Ukraine SMO in 2022, India has been slurping up discounted Russian crude — 1.8 million barrels a day by 2023. That eventually amounts to a cool 35–40% of our oil imports. And we are being made to believe that all this Donald Trump style feet stomping and slapping of tariffs on Indian goods, all these threats about “penalties” for “funding Putin’s war machine” etc are because of that.
The Real Sting…?
But now we know that that drama was what it was. The real sting was not about India buying Russian oil. EU does too. And so does China. No; the real burn was that New Delhi has been paying for it in local currencies, bypassing the dollar. Social media is now buzzing about how Uncle wants India to do all its business in dollars… how this is a big loss to the Petrodollar domination. Bingo! The US isn’t mad about oil; it is mad we are denting its currency empire.
So, the dollar has been the global trade’s golden child forever, especially for oil. It is how Uncle Sam has been flexing its financial biceps, sanctioning anyone who dared dream in non-dollar terms (remember Iran, Venezuela… or even Libya?). And India is going that same route by deciding “We’ll pay in rupees and dirhams, thank you very much”.
And since 2022, Indian refiners like Reliance and Nayara have settled deals in UAE dirhams and roubles, saving billions — $16.8 billion by 2025 per some estimates. That has been like some exalted planet on the Ambani horoscope (I am guessing most planets are exalted in that chart) strutting on the world stage, making Reliance’s stock soar 34% while Exxon sits there sulking.
Sada kutta Kutta, tuada kutta Tommy…?
And this is where I have to admit that Washington’s hypocrisy looks way richer than those exorbitantly paid NBA basketball stars. Remember I mentioned EU and China buying Russian oil? Well, “EU member states bought €21.9bn (£18.1bn) of Russian oil and gas in the third year of the war, according to estimates from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), despite the efforts under way to kick the continent’s addiction to the fuels that fund Vladimir Putin’s war chest”, reports The Guardian. That’s alright, but what I did not mention is that Uncle’s trade with Russia hit $5.2 billion in 2024! Reuters notes an interesting mix of fertilizers, uranium, plutonium, palladium in that list. And yet India becomes the bad guy.
Trump’s team: Navarro, Rubio, and pals, they are calling us “opportunistic” for snapping up cheap oil. I think they are a little embarrassed to admit that they wanted to use “smart” instead of opportunistic. But I am happy with India being opportunistic; no complains at all. Buying discounted crude is peak pragmatism. Buying the same, when nudged by the US itself in a bid to “stabilize” global prices could be called generosity. Question is, does pragmatism couple with generosity to produce opportunism? I don’t know. But I know when someone tries to flip the script.
Aap apni naukri rakh lijiye…
India’s effort to move away from the dollar, backed by BRICS and RBI’s rupee trade push, cold be a response to this flipping of script. Uncle can keep those tariffs; we will keep our INR and our hustle. And it would be a good place here to remind Uncle that it is not New Delhi that’s out to dismantle your dollar dynasty; it is your own leadership and its tariff game that looks competent enough to accomplish the same.
