Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has argued that the steep tariffs imposed on India by US President Donald Trump had little to do with New Delhi’s Russian oil purchases. Speaking at the UBS Center Forum for Economic Dialogue, he said the dispute stemmed instead from “personalities” and a diplomatic disagreement over credit for de-escalating India-Pakistan tensions.

“I don’t think Russian oil purchases were ever the central issue. You just saw yesterday, he (Trump) waived the purchase of oil by Viktor Orbán in Hungary — that's okay. I don’t think that was the central issue,” Rajan said.

Rajan explained that the trigger for the tariffs lay in how the White House reacted to India’s stance after Trump claimed credit for stopping a conflict between India and Pakistan. “The central issue was

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