Amid soaring debates over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, Indian-origin Congressman Ro Khanna took a jab at the MAGA leader and all those who continue to support him.
“I am waiting for all those Indian Americans who voted for Trump over Harris — you know who you are — to speak out against Trump sabotaging the partnership with blanket tariffs that are harsher than those on China?” he fumed on X. “Anyone will to speak up?”
He quote-posted Indian author Kapil Komireddi’s tweet shedding light on a recent opinion piece he penned for the New York Times. “Trump has dismantled, almost overnight, Modi’s meticulously crafted image as a globally venerated statesman—something the Indian political opposition has been unable to do for 11 years,” the ‘Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India’ author said in his post.
Netizens react to Ro Khanna’s anti-Trump message to Indian Americans
Khanna’s post, though made a few days ago, continues to gain traction on the Elon Musk-led social media platform. As expected, not many were happy to see the tweet on the Internet.
“Ro thinks Indian Americans should be on India’s side, not America,” a user commented on the post. Someone else countered: “The Indians you are referring to are speaking out and the ones taking Trump’s side on the issue have shown they were only in it for themselves and or for US / India mutual interests.”
I am waiting for all those Indian Americans who voted for Trump over Harris –you know who you are –to speak out against Trump sabotaging the partnership with blanket tariffs that are harsher than those on China. Anyone willing to speak up? https://t.co/IbRRA1sfxH
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) August 31, 2025
On the other hand, some even targeted Khanna over his own past affiliations. In 2019, he became the first Indian-American to join the Congressional Pakistan Caucus, prompting hundreds of organisations with Indian roots to urge him to withdraw from the same.
Consequently, someone dug up that page of US political history, saying, “It’s not like you were ever defending Indian Americans in the first place. You were literally part of the Pakistani Caucus. Trump changed his position on many issues, how can you blame voters for that?”
Yet another user wrote, “Trump is bad, but you were no better Ro, in case you really had a change of heart, pls enlighten us, how did it happen?” They also plugged a years-old post from 2023, which linked him to Pakistan-born businessman Tahir Javed.
“Why does @RoKhanna badger #India so much? @USIRCOnline uncovered that Ro gets money from Pakistani-American businessman & Democratic Party mega-donor Tahir Javed. Ro visits Javed’s condo,” the United States-India Relationship Council (USIRC) page on X shared at the time. “He’s pictured in 2019 talking to Javed while standing w/ Pak PM Imran Khan. Follow the money.”
Someone else not only hit it out against Khanna, but also former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democrats at large. “All of you democrats and republicans are cut out of the same cloth. You are all carry the same dna of political corruption, grift and deception. Pretending to be friends before election and show true colors once in power. Kamala would have done the exact same,” a person who claims neither to be a Republican nor a Democrat added to the comments section.
Global tariff chaos amid nearly withered India-US ties
Ro Khanna’s tone in his recent social media past is quite similar to the sentiment raised by Indian-origin Nikki Haley in her August op-ed published on Newsweek. At the time, she, too, raised concerns over how Trump’s moves were basically threatening a decades-long friendship between consequential democratic nations.
On one hand, she stood by the US president in urging India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pay heed to Trump’s warnings and rework the ties with Russia and the purchase of Russian oil. On the other, she emphasised the US needed to treat India as “the prized free and democratic partner that it is – not an adversary like China, which has thus far avoided sanctions for its Russian oil purchases, despite being one of Moscow’s largest customers.”
Hailing the South Asian country as “only country that can serve as a counterweight to Chinese dominance in Asia,” Haley warned that a rift between India and America would ultimately result in a “strategic disaster.”
Trump tariffs: India vs China
The US president’s new tariff plan that went into effect in August brough duties on Chinese goods to a massive 30%. However, they were still not as high as eye-widening toll on India. After being hit with secondary sanctions, India’s suffered a 50% tariff toll.
Despite China being the biggest buyer of Russian oil, India coming in second, the South Asian nation was subjected to unequal treatment. Even with Russia’s war in Ukraine, Trump came out of an inconclusive summit with Putin in Alaska with a smile on his face. Subsequently, White House officials confirmed “sanctions on India” were meant to exert extra pressure on the Russian president to stop the onslaught Ukraine.
And then, US State Secretary Marco Rubio explained in a separate interview with Fox Business why India was targeted with secondary tariffs while China was spared.
“Well, if you look at the oil that’s going to China and being refined, a lot of that is then being sold back into Europe. Europe’s also buying natural gas still. Now, there are countries trying to wean themselves off it, but there’s more Europe can do with regard to their own sanctions,” he said.
Deeming additional duties on China as a threat to global oil prices, Rubio added, “f you put secondary sanctions on a country – let’s say you were to go after the oil sales of Russian oil to China – well, China just refines that oil. That oil is then sold into the global marketplace, and anyone who’s buying that oil would be paying more for it or, if it doesn’t exist, would have to find an alternative source for it.”
On the same page, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused India of profiting off Russian oil purchases in a different CNBC interview, while labelling China’s imports “suboptimal.”
“If you go back to pre 2022, pre invasion (of Ukraine), 13% of China’s oil was already coming from Russia. Now it’s 16%. so China has diversified input of their oil. India has less than 1% of their oil coming from Russia (before 2022),” he claimed during the August interaction. “And now I believe it’s 42%. India is just profiteering, they are reselling. They made $16 billion in excess profits, some of the richest families in India. So this is a completely different thing.”
Trump on India’s tariffs
With 50% tariffs on Indian goods having gone into effect last week, President Trump’s latest comments on the global row suggested that India offered to cut its tariffs on US goods to “nothing.” He wrote online, “India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the US,” adding New Delhi should have reduced the tariffs “years ago.”
In his Monday post, he went on to say, “What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us. In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest “client,” but we sell them very little – Until now a totally one sided relationship, and it has been for many decades.”
The MAGA leader’s comments aligned with Indian PM Narendra Modi’s attendance at the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China, where apparently had positive interactions with Chinese and Russian president Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, respectively.