"Don’t give China a pass and burn a relationship with a strong ally like India," says Nikki Haley.
Ms Nimarata Nikki Randhawa Haley is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 116th governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017.
She also served as the US ambassador to the United Nations from January 2017 to December 2018.
A Republican, Haley is the first Indian American to serve in a presidential cabinet.
She warned that the move could strain the US-India relationship at a crucial time.
She also advised Trump not to give a pass to "adversary" China.
The Republican leader also called out the Trump administration's duplicity, highlighting a soft-handling of trade with China in which the US paused the tariffs for 90 days.
"India should not be buying oil from Russia. But China, an adversary and the number one buyer of Russian and Iranian oil, got a 90-day tariff pause.
Don’t give China a pass and burn a relationship with a strong ally like India," she tweeted.
Her missive on the micro blogging site came after Trump's recent interview with CNBC, where he announced plans to drastically raise tariffs, already at 25 per cent effective from August 1, on Indian goods.
He linked the proposed move to India’s continued purchase of Russian oil, stating that New Delhi was "fuelling the war machine".
Haleyhas long supported stronger ties between the US and India.
She also believes that there is a need to 'counter' China’s global influence by building closer partnerships with democratic nations in the Indo-Pacific — particularly India. "India has the highest tariffs of any country," Trump said during the interview.
"They do a lot of business with us. We don’t do much with them. We agreed on 25 per cent tariffs, but I’m going to raise that very substantially now because of their Russian oil trade," Trump said, seeking to almost press the panic button for India.
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