By Suresh Unnithan
While the US-Israel-initiated armed conflict with Iran is rapidly spreading across the Middle East — engulfing Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and threatening to drag in even more nations — President Donald Trump is desperately manoeuvring to seize supremacy in global energy politics. The just-announced temporary 30-day waiver allowing India to purchase stranded Russian crude oil amid this man-made energy crisis is nothing less than Uncle Sam’s brazen declaration of craving for total global supremacy over fossil fuels. Far from an act of generosity, this short-term “favour” is a calculated leash: Washington dangles relief only to remind New Delhi who truly controls the taps.
Announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on March 5-6, 2026, the waiver authorises Indian refiners to buy Russian crude and petroleum products loaded on vessels by March 5, with delivery to Indian ports mandated before April 4. With the Strait of Hormuz under effective blockade and global oil prices spiking above $80 a barrel, India — which imports over 85% of its crude — stood to face crippling shortages. Up to 120 million barrels of discounted Russian cargo were at risk of rotting at sea. The US Treasury framed it as a “stopgap” to prevent Iran from “holding global energy hostage” while ensuring no fresh dollars flow to Moscow. Yet the timing is telling: this comes after Washington had slapped India with punitive 25% tariffs for buying Russian oil, only to lift them selectively when chaos suited American interests.
This is not pragmatism. This is supremacy dressed as mercy. By deciding which nation gets Russian oil and for how long, the Trump administration has positioned itself as the self-appointed gatekeeper of the world’s energy arteries. India, the world’s third-largest oil importer and a nation that cleverly used discounted Russian barrels to shield its economy from inflation, is being treated like a vassal state whose energy security exists only at Washington’s pleasure.
Nowhere is this imperial mindset more naked than in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s February 14, 2026 speech at the Munich Security Conference. In a stunning display of historical revisionism, Rubio openly mourned the “decline of Western civilization” after World War II. He expressed regret over the “anti-colonial uprisings” and “communist revolutions” that dismantled European empires, framing decolonisation not as liberation but as a tragic loss of Western dominance. He called for a renewed transatlantic alliance to “reclaim industrial might”, dominate markets and critical minerals in the Global South, and aggressively compete against rising powers. Critics rightly called it “civilizational panic” and a yearning to restore a “glorious world of Western dominance that vanished decades ago”. For India — a proud republic born from the ashes of British colonialism — Rubio’s nostalgia for empire is not just tone-deaf; it is a direct ideological threat. The same man who lamented the end of empire also pressured India in the same speech to halt “additional” Russian oil purchases, linking energy choices to loyalty in America’s new civilizational crusade.
Just yesterday, March 5, at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau delivered the same message with cold candour. While paying lip service to India’s “limitless potential”, he bluntly declared that Washington would not repeat the “mistakes” it made with China two decades ago. America First, he said, means no more economic altruism that allows partners to become rivals. Trade deals will be strictly reciprocal; market access will come only with concessions. The subtext was unmistakable: India can rise, but never to challenge the United States. India “will never beat us”, the underlying message screamed.
This is not partnership. This is hegemony 2.0 — a desperate attempt to resurrect colonial-era control mechanisms in the 21st century. Trump’s America is weaponising sanctions, waivers, tariffs and speeches to keep emerging powers like India on a short leash. The 30-day waiver is not aid; it is a reminder that Washington decides when, how much, and for how long India can feed its economy.
India must respond with steel, not gratitude. Diversify energy sources ruthlessly — accelerate renewables, deepen ties with the Global South, expand BRICS energy cooperation, and fast-track strategic petroleum reserves. Most importantly, New Delhi must publicly reject any notion that its sovereign choices in energy or trade require American approval. The colonial days Rubio pines for are dead and buried. If the United States continues this over-ambitious quest for fossil-fuel supremacy and civilizational dominance, it will only accelerate the very multipolar world it fears — a world where India stands tall, unshackled and unafraid.