India, Sept. 28 -- The United States continues to play hardball with India over trade and tariffs as the American commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, pointedly said on Sunday: "If you want to sell to the US consumer, right, you've got to play ball with the President of the United States."

Lutnick listed India among countries that need to "open their markets" and "stop taking actions that harm America" - adding to the condition that India must stop buying oil from Russia.

"We have have a bunch of countries to fix," he said, referring to tariff-linked tensions and trade relations with Switzerland, Brazil and India. "That's why we're offsides with them," he said, using football analogy to say all's not well in the relationship.

He did add...