Sovereign nations free to choose trade partners: Kremlin spokesman

MOSCOW - Sovereign nations have the right to choose their trade and economic partners based on their own interests, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

"We believe sovereign countries must and do have the right to independently choose their trade and economic cooperation partners, as well as determine the forms of such cooperation that align with their own interests," Peskov said, commenting on US tariff threats against India.

There have been numerous statements intended to coerce countries into severing trade ties with Russia, he said, deeming such threatening remarks unlawful.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social platform that he would significantly raise tariffs on India over its import and resale of Russian oil.

On Tuesday, Trump repeated the tariff threat against India in a televised interview with the CNBC. "We settled on 25 percent, but I think I'm going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours because they're buying Russian oil." Meanwhile, the US president said that "India has not been a good trading partner".

On Monday, India's Foreign Ministry released a statement dismissing as "unjustified and unreasonable" the US and European Union criticism of its Russian oil imports.