India needs dialogue with US over Iran sanctions threat – lawmaker

International law doesn’t recognize unilateral sanctions imposed by individual countries, Shashi Tharoor has told RT

New Delhi must conduct a dialogue with Washington over the latest Iran-related tariff announced by US President Donald Trump, a top Indian lawmaker has said.

Trump has stated he will impose a blanket 25% tariff on any nation that conducts business with Iran, escalating his pressure campaign to isolate the Islamic Republic amid ongoing unrest.

“The honest truth is that Iran is a neighbor, and for us, our attitude to Iran is very different from that of a country like the US that is so far away that they don’t need anything from Iran or they don’t need to trade with Iran,” Shashi Tharoor, the chairman of India’s parliamentary panel on external affairs, told RT India in an interview. “They can afford to sanction it.”

International law doesn’t recognize individual countries unilaterally imposing sanctions, Tharoor said. “At the same time, we have to function in the real world, we have to be aware of what the cost and consequences are of challenging or defying certain kinds of sanctions,” he added.

“I think we’ll have to talk to the Americans about all this,” he said, adding India’s policy and principle has always been to observe sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council.

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The US imposed a 50% tariff on India last August, half of which was a punitive levy for New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil. India-US talks to reach a trade deal restarted this week, though Trump has repeatedly threatened to raise tariffs on the South Asian nation.

If the US goes ahead with the 25% tariff on countries trading with Iran, India would face a 75% total tariff. “At 75%, nobody from India will be able to export to America anymore. So these are all questions that our government will have to look at very carefully,” he said.

Trump has also said he supports a bipartisan bill in Congress that would authorize him to impose sweeping sanctions on Russia’s trade partners. India is negotiating free trade agreements with a dozen countries or trade blocs, including the US, its largest trading partner and export market.