United States President Donald Trump on Saturday said India will buy Venezuelan oil, as opposed to purchasing oil from Iran.
“We’ve already made that deal, the concept of the deal,” Trump told reporters while on Air Force One, en route to Florida from Washington, DC.
Trump also said on Saturday that China was also welcome to make a deal with the US to buy Venezuelan oil.
Trump’s comment came a day after the US told Delhi it could soon resume purchases of Venezuelan oil to help replace imports of Russian oil, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
India pledged to slash Russian crude oil purchases after Washington also hiked tariffs related to that activity, and India is on track to lower its Russian oil imports by several hundred thousand barrels per day in the coming months, according to the sources, who declined to be identified.
Trump imposed 25 per cent tariffs on countries buying Venezuelan oil, including India, in March 2025, and his administration ramped up a campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom US forces captured on January 3.
Since then, Washington has begun directing the Caracas government and plans to control Venezuela’s oil industry indefinitely.
The US effort to supply Venezuelan crude to India comes as Washington seeks to reduce the oil revenue that is funding Russia in its war in Ukraine.
Last week, Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said India is diversifying its crude sources as its Russian oil imports fall.
Two of the Reuters sources said India is preparing to cut Russian oil imports to below one million barrels per day soon.
In January, they were around 1.2 million bpd, and are projected to decline to about 1m bpd in February and 800,000 bpd in March, one of those two sources said.
The second of the two sources said those imports are expected eventually to decline to about 500,000-600,000 bpd, helping the nation clinch a trade deal with the US.
US tariffs on Indian goods reached 50pc in August as Washington added a further 25pc tariff on purchases of Russian oil.
Challenges posed by Western sanctions eventually prompted Indian refiners to increase imports from other sources.
