'War in Ukraine runs through Washington DC': Richard Wolff shows mirror to Navarro

American economist Richard Wolff has delivered a stinging attack on White House trade adviser Peter Navarro after he described the conflict in Ukraine as “Modi’s war.” Wolff dismissed Navarro’s reasoning as “so stupid that it takes your breath away” and argued that Washington, not New Delhi, bears the central responsibility for the conflict.

“When this man (Navarro) talks, I have a vision in my mind that is captured by the phrase ‘not the sharpest knife in the drawer’,” Wolff said while speaking in a podcast conversation with Dialogue Works. He argued that trade by definition is profitable for both parties and cannot be equated with financing war. 
“Russia trades with at least 100 countries in the world, one of which is India. Mr. Navarro has decided that if you trade with Russia and you make money for Russia as part of the trade, therefore, you’re killing Ukrainians. On that ground, there should be an endless war of everybody against everybody,” he said.

Wolff compared Navarro’s logic to a reversal. “Mr. Putin would be able to say exactly the same thing about the United States and everybody who trades with the United States. You are providing profits for the United States, which are taxed and used by the government to kill Russians in Ukraine. So, therefore, I am going to punish you,” he noted.

He added that Navarro’s line of argument amounted to “old silly junk,” but what concerned him most was that “a man in his position says it with all the clarity and enthusiasm that this poor fellow can drag out of his soul.” According to Wolff, if India conceded to such reasoning, “they would be inviting every politician in the world, not just Americans, to use this kind of an argument to force concessions out of India. That’s why we don’t do that in general in the world. We just don’t.”

Navarro’s framing came during an interview with Bloomberg TV, when he claimed, “Everybody in America loses because of what India is doing. Workers lose because India’s high tariffs cost us jobs, factories, and higher wages. And then the taxpayers lose because we got to fund Modi’s war.” Asked if he meant “Putin’s war,” Navarro insisted: “I mean Modi’s war, because the road to peace runs, in part, through New Delhi.”

His remarks coincided with Washington’s imposition of 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports beginning in August, one of the highest levels in the world. The duties include a 25 per cent penalty linked to India’s purchases of Russian oil and defence equipment. India has described the tariffs as unfair and has reiterated that it will continue sourcing energy based on its national interests.

For Wolff, Navarro’s stance reveals a deeper irony. “The war in Ukraine runs through Washington DC, which made the decision to push NATO to the frontier of Russia. Everybody who isn’t silly knows that,” he said. “If you want to, you can then use that as an argument to stop trading with the United States. But nobody’s doing that.”

He concluded that Navarro and former president Donald Trump, who appointed him, had placed the US in a contradictory position. “Mr. Navarro and Mr. Trump, who hires a Mr. Navarro and thereby joins him in the same drawer. This is extraordinary desperation. This is nonsensical junk. But it will have and it is having enormous consequences,” Wolff said.

According to Wolff, Washington’s punitive approach risks backfiring globally. “The United States – by punishing the whole world one after another, Canada, Mexico, and India – is isolating itself. It is performing self-containment,” he argued. “That will be a major strategic objective of many, many parts of the rest of the world.”