New Delhi, Aug. 5 -- In a sharp escalation of trade tensions, US president Donald Trump on Tuesday warned that he would impose higher tariffs on Indian goods within 24 hours, citing India's continued purchases of Russian oil. In an interview with CNBC, Trump accused India of fuelling Russia's war in Ukraine and labelled it the "highest tariff nation," claiming that India benefits from US trade while not offering reciprocal access.

"With India. what people don't like to say is they have the highest tariff of anybody. We do very little business with them because their tariffs are so high," Trump said, adding, "We settled on 25%, but I think I'm going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they're buying Russian oi...