Trump trade envoy labelled ‘peak senile’ in bitter row with India

Donald Trump’s trade adviser has been branded “shameful and sinister” for accusing an Indian caste of profiting from Russian oil sales.

Peter Navarro weighed into the trade war between US and India, claiming “Brahmins are profiteering at the expense of Indian people”.

The White House aide also accused India of being a “laundromat for the Kremlin” in the Fox News interview after Mr Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs as punishment for its purchase of Russian oil.

The comments were met with outrage in India – where caste-based discrimination is still rife, decades after it was made illegal.

Indian media accused Mr Navarro of “trying to sow chaos” by “exploiting the country’s fault lines”, while politicians lined up to criticise the remarks.

“Navarro’s invocation of a particular caste identity in India to make his point, even if it is to imply the ‘privileged lot’ vis a vis the rest, is shameful and sinister,” said Priyanka Chaturvedi, an Indian opposition MP.

She added the comments were a “meltdown reaching peak level of senile”.

It comes as Trump’s tariff diplomacy has opened a deep rift with India that analysts say risks pushing the world’s largest democracy away from Western spheres of influence and into the embrace of China and Russia.

Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of PM Modi’s Economic Advisory Council, said Navarro’s latest insult “tells us a lot about who controls narratives about India and Hindus inside the policy/intellectual spaces of America.”

“This is derived directly from 19th century colonial jibes going back to the likes of [British colonial administrator] James Mill. Edward Said’s point about Orientalism is perhaps more correct for India than his original thesis on the Middle East,” Sanyal said.

The Brahmin is an upper-caste in India’s oppressive ancient caste system, a hierarchical social structure rooted in Hinduism.

Brahmins, traditionally priests and scholars, sit at the top of this system, followed by other upper castes like Kshatriyas (warriors) and Vaishyas (merchants). Below them are Shudras (labourers) and Dalits (formerly “untouchables”), who face severe discrimination.

Some have defended Mr Navarro, claiming he was referring to Boston Brahmins, a US term that describes the northeastern city’s historic upper class that dates to the 1860s.

Mr Navarro’s comments came as Narendra Modi held hands with Vladimir Putin and embraced Xi Jinping in China on Monday, in the wake of Mr Trump’s punishing tariff humiliation.

The Indian prime minister has reportedly ignored a series of phone calls from his US counterpart after the tariff rise. Mr Trump is also reportedly planning to cancel his upcoming visit to India

In August Mr Trump described India and Russia’s economies as “dead” and accused India of not caring about those killed in the conflict in Ukraine.

“They’re fuelling the war machine, and if they’re going to do that, then I’m not happy,” Mr Trump told CNBC in the first week of August.

Before the 2022 invasion, Russian oil accounted for just 0.2 per cent of India’s imports but today it accounts for 45 per cent, around two million barrels a day, bringing Moscow £41bn in revenue last year, according to Delhi’s Global Trade Research Initiative.

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