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Shashi Tharoor slammed Peter Navarro’s offensive remarks against India, calling them unnecessary amid growing US-India ties. He also bashed Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor (Image Credit: PTI)
Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said there was no need for Donald Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, to use offensive language and statements against India, given that India and the United States were getting “closer”.
Speaking to news agency ANI, the Congress MP also asserted that India was being dealt “unfairly” when it came to the imposition of tariffs.
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“The unfairness of this has definitely created a very strong backlash in India, and the accompanying insults, both by Trump’s own language in his statements and tweets… Subsequently, the extremely offensive statements by his advisor (Peter) Navarro have gotten a backlash across the country,” the Congress MP said.
“If there’s no particular problem in a relationship of 30 years, which has been getting toward greater closeness, why would you use this kind of language about India? This was not at all appreciated,” Tharoor said.
Tharoor also took a swipe at Donald Trump over his imposition of tariffs, and said the US President thinks of tariffs as “magic instruments” that could solve multiple problems, such as reducing the deficit in his country and furthering his political agenda.
“The US President intends to make imported items more expensive by levying tariffs to push the American manufacturers to start doing things in America,” he said.
“What went wrong to begin with is that Trump has this idea that tariffs are the magic instruments to solve a number of his problems. He feels that too many things that were manufactured in America are now being imported.”
“He wants to make that more expensive so that the American manufacturer will start doing things more in America and employ American workers, who are his base (the MEGA constituency, as it is called),” the Congress MP said.
Soon after Donald Trump had imposed a sweeping 50 per cent tariff on India, which included a 25 per cent penalty for buying Russian crude oil, White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro had taken a strident position justifying the President’s decision.
He even made a caste-based remark on the issue and accused the Brahmin community of India of “profiteering at the expense of the Indian people.”
He criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy approach while calling him a “great leader”, suggesting that India’s engagement with Russia and China undermines its status as the world’s largest democracy.
Referring to India as a “laundromat for the Kremlin”, Navarro, during an interview with Fox News, had also accused New Delhi of enabling trade imbalances and geopolitical alliances that run counter to US interests.
‘TRUMP’s DOMESTIC POLITICS’: THAROOR ON H-1B VISA FEE HIKE
Tharoor also termed the sudden $100,000 hike in H-1B visa fee “America’s domestic politics” and said that the President was trying to gain support of the anti-immigration base.
He also said the decision aimed to appease Trump’s “so-called MAGA” supporters.
“Again, the motives are principally driven by domestic politics. Trump believes, and the people around him have told him, that the easy H-1B has meant that a lot of Americans who deserve a higher salary from the same companies are being bypassed by Indians who will accept a lower salary,” Tharoor said.
“Today, the dominant political forces of the so-called MAGA movement are very openly anti-immigrants, and particularly visible immigrants, people of a different colour who can be spotted as not of the white ethnic mainstream,” the Congress MP said.
“An Indian techie who comes and works for sixty thousand dollars a year is taking away, according to Trump’s supporters, jobs from an American who would not work for less than eighty-five or ninety thousand dollars a year,” he said.
He further said that the decision to raise the visa fee was meant to make low- and mid-level jobs “unviable.”
“So only the high-end, really desirable, irreplaceable top people who are worth it for a company to spend a hundred thousand dollars, only they will come,” he added.
ALSO READ | Shashi Tharoor Blames Trump’s Tariffs For Indian Job Losses, Criticises Diplomatic Conduct
About the Author
Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks.
Vani Mehrotra is the Deputy News Editor at News18.com. She has nearly 10 years of experience in both national and international news and has previously worked on multiple desks.
September 23, 2025, 14:33 IST
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