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White House trade advisor Peter Navarro’s ran a poll on X on Sunday, asking whether the platform should let what he called “Indian special interests” interfere in US debates. The poll followed Navarro’s earlier post on India and his clash with Elon Musk over a Community Notes correction of his post.The poll, which will run for six more days, shows 79.3% of respondents answering “Yes.” It also attracted Community Notes, clarifying that X’s earlier notes were not influenced by any “Indian special interests” and were crowdsourced globally. Another note said, “Peter Navarro is a moron who continuously is defaming India and Indian people. When Indian people counter him, he cries like a baby in a diaper. Even Elon Musk has clarified about the community notes.”One Community Note even accused him of hypocrisy and suggested he needed treatment, adding a list of mental hospitals for him to visit, while yet another said dismissing facts as “foreign lies” was a classic case of misinformation, which Navarro was already known for.
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In his earlier post, Navarro had claimed that India’s high tariffs hurt American jobs and that New Delhi was buying Russian oil purely to profit. His post accused India of fuelling Russia’s war in Ukraine and criticised US media for not reporting the truth. Soon after, X attached Community Notes to the post, pointing out that the US itself continues to import Russian uranium, fertilisers, and chemicals, while trade between the US and India had grown by 20 percent since Donald Trump took office. The note added that the European Union imported $25 billion worth of Russian energy in 2024 alone, showing Navarro’s claims as misleading. Reacting to the note, Navarro accused Elon Musk of “letting propaganda into people’s posts” and called the correction “crap.” Musk directly responded, writing that on X, “the people decide the narrative” and that Community Notes were applied without exception.
