India denies pausing arms purchase from US after tariffs, calls report ‘false and fabricated’
In a statement, Defence Ministry officials said India is not pausing any defence purchase talks and procurement are progressing as per extant procedures.
INDIA has denied media reports saying that New Delhi has paused its talks to buy US arms, including new weapons and aircraft over Trump tariffs, calling them ‘false and fabricated’.
In a statement, Defence Ministry officials said India is not pausing any defence purchase talks and procurement is progressing as per extant procedures.
The Reuters story on India pausing defense purchases from the US is False and Fabricated, a senior official of the Ministry of Defence told LiveMint.
“The news reports on India pausing the talks related to defence purchases with the US are false and fabricated,” the officials said, according to ANI.
“It is clarified that the various cases of procurement are being progressed as per the extant procedures,” they added.
What did the report say?
The exclusive report, published by news agency Reuters on Friday, claimed that India has put a pause on its plans to procure new US weapons and aircraft citing three official sources.
The report called it the “first concrete sign of discontent” expressed by India following the US tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
Trump tariffs on India were doubled to 50 per cent — the highest in the world — by the POTUS as he cited New Delhi's continued oil purchase from Russia.
The report said that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was set to go to Washington in the coming week to announce some arms purchases, but “that trip has been cancelled”.
It claimed, citing an official, that written instructions “had not been given to pause the purchases”. This, the report said, gave India the option to quickly reverse course, though there was “no forward movement at least for now.”
“Reuters is reporting for the first time that discussions on India's purchases of Stryker combat vehicles made by General Dynamics Land Systems and Javelin anti-tank missiles developed by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have been paused due to the tariffs,” it said.
India has reacted strongly to Trump's 50 per cent tariffs but has not taken any retaliatory action yet. The Ministry of External Affairs has called the US tariffs ‘unfair’ as Trump doubled them to 50 per cent earlier this week over the Russian oil purchase.
