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During a TV interview, Trump's advisor Peter Navarro launched a fresh attack on India, labelling it and other BRICS nations as "vampires sucking our blood dry with their unfair trade practices." Here's what he said.
US President Donald Trump's White House trade advisor has done it again; Peter Navarro has once again taken a potshot at India. What's different this time? This time dragging the entire BRICS bloc into his tirade and has gone as far as calling India and others "vampires sucking our (America's) blood dry with their unfair trade practices". Navarro made the bizarre statement during a TV interaction. He also claimed that without selling to the United States, the BRICS nations would not survive. Here's all you need to know about Navarro's latest attack against India.
In a TV interview, Navarro said the countries in BRICS — which includes India, China, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa, along with new members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE and Indonesia — "would not survive without selling to the US."
"When they sell to the US their exports they are like vampires sucking our blood dry with their unfair trade practices," he claimed. He went further, alleging that BRICS nations "hate each other and kill each other" historically. Navarro singled out India and China, describing the two as having been "at war for decades."
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Navarro's latest remarks follow weeks of attacks on India over its imports of discounted Russian oil. Last week, one of his social media posts was fact-checked by X users, who noted that India's oil trade was about energy security, not profiteering. Having a full-on public meltdown, Navarro then proceeded to dismiss the correction as "crap," and lashed out at Elon Musk, who eventually defended his platform's community notes feature.
The "vampire" rhetoric is not new for Navarro. In May, he made similar comments about China in relation to the UK, warning London not to become "a dumping ground" for Chinese goods or "an all too compliant servant of the Chinese Communist Party". "If the Chinese vampire can't suck the American blood, it is going to suck the UK blood and the EU blood," he said, as quoted by the Telegraph.
Navarro’s renewed hostility towards India comes in the wake of President Donald Trump's move to double tariffs on Indian imports to 50 per cent, a penalty Washington linked to New Delhi's oil trade with Moscow.