President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that the United States will help develop Pakistan’s “massive oil reserves” and that Islamabad may someday sell the fuel to India.

“We [US and Pakistan] are in the process of choosing the oil company that will lead this partnership,” Trump said on social media. “Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling oil to India some day!”

The comment came just hours after the US president announced that Washington will levy a 25% tariff on goods imported from India from August 1.

Trump added that India will also have to pay a “penalty” for buying a large portion of its military equipment and fuel from Russia amid the war on Ukraine. He did not specify the quantum of the “penalty”.

Later in the day, however, Trump said that his administration is still negotiating the final tariff rate with India.

“They [India] have one of the highest tariffs in the world now, they’re willing to cut it very substantially,” Trump said during a press briefing. “We are talking to India now, we’ll see what happens…You’ll know by the end of this week.”

When asked about the so-called penalty on India for its trade ties with Russia, the US president also linked it to New Delhi’s membership in the BRICS grouping.

“It’s also BRICS. BRICS, which is basically a group of countries that are anti the United States,” Trump said. “India is a member of that if you can believe it…It is an attack on the dollar and we are not going to let anybody attack the dollar”

Trump said the decision to impose the penalty on New Delhi was partially because of “BRICS and…partially trade”.

The BRICS grouping comprises India, Brazil, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Washington views the group as attempting to become an economic counterweight to the US.

Trump had earlier in July threatened to impose tariffs on imports from the countries part of the BRICS and raised concerns about the multilateral forum’s growing influence and its impact on the US dollar.

Trump tariffs

The United States has said on several occasions it will impose “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries that have not negotiated separate trade agreements with it by August 1.

Trump announced higher levies in April, before pausing those tariffs at a reduced 10% rate to allow time for negotiations. Despite an extended deadline, Trump has only secured a handful of deals.

On Monday, the US president had said that he would likely introduce a global baseline tariff between 15% and 20% for countries that had not negotiated trade deals with his administration.

Trump had said on June 27 that New Delhi could sign a “very big” trade deal with Washington soon. On July 2, the White House said that the deal was close to being finalised and would be announced soon.

An Indian team led by Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had visited the US in May to negotiate the agreement. Following this, a team of negotiators from the US was in India for a week in June.

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