US seeks deeper trade, energy ties with India: Energy Secy Wright

New York: The US seeks greater trade and energy cooperation with its “awesome ally” India, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said, while acknowledging“friction” between the countries over New Delhi’s import of discounted Russian oil under sanctions.

Wright made the remarks at a press conference organised at the New York Foreign Press Centre on Wednesday on the sidelines of the high-level United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session.

“A lot of my early time when I arrived in my position was dealing with India — the world’s largest democracy, an awesome ally of the United States, a fast-growing economy, a truly dynamic society,” he said.

Wright said India has a rapidly growing energy demand because of increasing prosperity and opportunity among its people. “I’m a huge fan of India; we love India. We look forward to more energy trade, more interactions back and forth with India,” he said.

Wright was responding to a question on recent comments by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on expanding energy trade with Washington, and that India’s energy security goals will have a high element of US involvement.

“And then India is caught up in the middle of another issue,” Wright said, referring to New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.

Wright noted that the US’ main concern remains the flow of sanctioned Russian oil to countries like India, China and Turkiye, which he said is helping fund the war in Ukraine.

“And that’s the friction. The friction’s on that issue. We want to bring that war to an end. I believe the Indians want to bring that war to an end. And we want to expand our energy cooperation with India -- in natural gas, in coal, in nuclear, in clean cooking fuels, and in liquid petroleum gas. India has been a star in that area. So we want nothing more than more trade, energy cooperation with India,” he said.

Wright said US President Donald Trump’s “greatest passion” is achieving peace in the world. “When I talk to him, it does not matter what the topic is, peace comes up. How can we use our tools and leverage to drive peace? And the Russian war in Ukraine, of course, is brutal. We all want to see it come to an end,” he said.

Responding to a question on potential solutions to reduce India’s dependence on Russian oil, Wright said there are many alternative suppliers globally.

“India buys Russian oil because it can buy it for cheaper, because nobody wants to buy Russian oil so they have to sell it at a discount. India has decided to make the tradeoff to buy cheaper oil and sort of look the other way, that’s giving money to a guy who’s murdering thousands of people every week.

“Of course, we wish India would work with us to buy -- you can buy oil from every nation on the Earth, just not Russian oil. That’s our position. America has oil to sell, but so does everybody else. We don’t want to punish India. We want to end the war, and we want to grow our relations with India,” he said.

“The President wants nothing more than this war to end, and it would have the additional benefit of removing a source of friction. I am all in on energy cooperation and trade cooperation with India. I think there is a bright future there, but somehow we got to figure out how to work together to put the maximum pressure to bring the war to an end,” he said.