New Delhi: Posting a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, US President Donald Trump on Friday (September 5) said that it looks like the US “has lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China”.“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together! President Donald J. Trump,” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.The Ministry of External Affairs has said that it had “no comments to offer” on the post.But in its weekly press briefing on Friday it said New Delhi rejects the “inaccurate” and “misleading” statements made by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro criticising India’s purchases of Russian oil, although it went on to affirm its investment in the “very important” Indo-US ties.Shortly after Trump’s remarks, in a Bloomberg interview, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that he expects India to “say sorry” and resume trade talks with the US within one or two months. He also said that India needs to “decide which side they want to be on”.“Remember, before the Russian conflict, the Indians bought less than 2% of their oil from Russia. Less than 2%. And now they’re buying 40% of their oil from Russia. What they’re doing is, because the oil is sanctioned, it’s really, really cheap because the Russians are trying to find people to buy it. And so the Indians have just decided, ah, to heck with it, let’s buy it cheap and make a ton of money. But you know what? That is just plain wrong. It’s ridiculous,” he said.“In a month or two months, I think India’s going to be at the table, and they’re going to say they’re sorry, and they’re going to try to make a deal with Donald Trump, and it will be on Donald Trump’s desk how he wants to deal with Modi, and we leave that to him, that’s why he’s the president,” he added.Lutnick claimed that Indian businesses that suffer due to the high US tariff rate of 50% “will persuade the Modi government” to come back to the negotiating table.The comments comes at a time when the Trump administration has told the US Supreme Court in a 251-page appeal that it imposed higher tariffs against India over its Russian oil purchases “to deal with a preexisting national emergency regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine” and as a “crucial aspect” of the Trump’s “push for peace” in the country.Speaking on the case, Lutnick expressed confidence that the Trump administration hadn’t lost anything, noting that the dissent was 7-4 but the chief justice, former chief justice and “smartest guy on the bench” sided with the US President.He then went on to say, “What we’ve lost is that India doesn’t yet want to open their market, stop buying Russian oil, right, and stop being a part of BRICS, right, they’re the vowel between Russia and China.”He also urged India to support the U.S. dollar at a time when rival initiatives such as BRICS are exploring alternatives to the dollar.“Either support the dollar, support the United States of America, support your biggest client, who is the American consumer, or I guess you’re going to pay a 50% tariff, and let’s see how long this lasts,” he said.Another critic in Washington of India’s purchases of Russian oil is senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro, who over the last two weeks has repeated his charge that New Delhi is functioning as a “laundromat for the Kremlin” and even went to the extent of calling the Ukraine war “Modi’s war”.Asked what efforts India is making to sustain its ties with the US against the backdrop of comments by senior American officials including Navarro’s ‘Modi’s war’ remark, the external affairs ministry on Friday said that New Delhi ‘obviously rejects’ the adviser’s “inaccurate and misleading statements”.“We have seen the inaccurate and misleading statements made by Mr Navarro and obviously we reject them,” spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, before recalling that India and the US do share a ‘comprehensive global strategic partnership’.He added that India “would like to work on the issues raised by this partnership” and “take it forward”, noting however that there ought to “be mutual understanding between the two countries, with shared interests and mutual respect”.Calling the Indo-US relationship “very important” to New Delhi, Jaiswal repeated the Modi government’s stance – first expressed in response to Trump’s broadsides against India’s Russian oil purchases – that this partnership “has weathered several transitions … and challenges”.He also pointed to Raisina Hill’s positive response to the summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska last month over an end to the Ukraine war, in which the two sides at any rate did not hammer out a ceasefire agreement.On the other hand, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman underscored that India will continue to buy oil from Russia.“We will have to take a call which (supply source) suits us the best. So we will undoubtedly be buying it,” she said, in an interview to CNN-News18, adding that India spends most of its foreign exchange on purchases of crude oil and refined fuels.“Whether it is Russian oil or anything else, it’s our decision to buy from the place which suits our needs whether in terms of rates, logistics, anything,” she said.India has maintained that its purchases of Russian oil are guided by market considerations. Officials in New Delhi have also argued that its purchases of Russian crude have helped stabilise global prices and point out that Europe continues to import energy from Russia while Washington has bought uranium hexafluoride, palladium and fertilisers from Moscow.Talks between India and the US have soured in the last few months as multiple rounds of negotiations have ended in a stalemate. Last month, a planned visit by US trade officials to New Delhi was cancelled. There have been no physical meetings between the two sides since.