Worldview with Suhasini Haidar | India’s oil conundrum: Between Russia, America and geopolitical turmoil

Now what a week it has been geopolitically as India went from the BRICS summit where the leaders of India, China, Russia, Iran were together around a table to this.

a new law in the united states that will mandate sanctions on india and china for buying russian oil it extends sanctions on iran as well we'll talk a bit about that but first let's get you the details of the law itself it's called house resolution 5334 the lindsay o graham sanctioning russia and iran act of 2026 This has been named after the former Senator Lindsey Graham, who passed away earlier this year, but had released acquired this bill.

Now, what the bill requires US President Donald Trump to do is, one, to increase tariffs on imports from Russia directly up to 500 percent, some exceptions for things like uranium, nuclear cooperation that the US and Russia still actually do.

So a bit of hypocrisy there.

The second, that Trump must make a determination within 30 days on imposing up to 100% tariffs on all goods that are imported from any country that is in the top five importers of Russian oil, with the caveat that they must each take more than 50% of Russian oil or natural gas, 15% of the total that Russia is exporting.

The third, that Trump must impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five facilitators of Russian oil sanctions evasion.

This is fairly vague, but it could mean a lot of Indian entities, if not the government itself, could face some punitive action.

The fourth, to put sanctions on any individuals involved in the purchase or transport of Russian oil.

And finally, to prohibit U.S. oil exports to countries that export, re-export or in-country transfer to the Russian Federation of any energy or energy product that is produced in the U.S. Now, this is an important one because it could also affect India in a different way as India does buy oil from the U.S. and some of that oil could find its way to Russia after it's been refined because Russia buys Indian refined products.

Here are some of the charts that could help you see where Russia sells and where India buys its oil from.

So if you are in any doubt that the US law actually applies to India, take a look at this.

So these are the figures from then.

Russia sold 37% of its oil exports to India.

So India, along with China, is one of the big ones.

There's Turkey.

There's also some European countries, but very small amounts.

India bought more than 38.8% from Russia in May this year.

Now that number is more than 51%.

So when you hear about India diversifying to more than 40 countries for its oil, the fact is more than half of its oil right now is actually coming from Russia.

So some of the other areas where India is looking to buy from will have to step up if India reduces.

Now, the U.S. lawmakers didn't just leave it at those vague terms.