It appears that cracks have started to appear in the Trump administration after a US Senator claimed that President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and White House adviser Peter Navarro were responsible for blocking the trade deal with India. In a viral audio clip Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, also questioned the US president's traffic policies and said they would damage the country's economic condition.
The 10-minute audio recordings were assessed by Axios, a media organisation in the US. However, India TV Digital cannot independently verify the veracity of the audio recordings.
In the recordings, the Texas Republican said the tariffs imposed by Trump on other nations could 'decimate' the US economy and would eventually lead to his impeachment. Cruz said he and several other senators had called on Trump in April last year after he imposed the tariffs but the talks, which went past midnight, "did not go well" and the president kept "yelling and cursing" at them.
"Trump was in a bad mood," Axios quoted Cruz as saying. "I've been in conversations where he was very happy. This was not one of them."
According to the report, Cruz told Trump that he would be impeached if he refuses to revoke the tariffs. "Mr. President, if we get to November of [2026] and people's 401(k)s are down 30 per cent and prices are up 10 to 20 per cent at the supermarket, we're going to go into Election Day, face a bloodbath," he said.
"You're going to lose the House, you're going to lose the Senate, you're going to spend the next two years being impeached every single week," he added.
The Trump tariffs and India's reply
Initially, Trump had imposed 25 per cent tariffs on India, citing trade imbalance between Washington and New Delhi. Later, he further imposed additional 25 per cent levies, taking the total tariffs to 50 per cent. New Delhi has constantly criticised Trump tariffs and called the unjust, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to protect India's national interests.
Lately, the Trump administration has hinted that it may reduce tariffs on India, though. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week said the 25 per cent additional tariffs on India could be removed, as it has reduced its oil purchase from Russia.
"We put a 25 per cent tariff on India for buying Russian oil, and the Indian purchases by their refineries of Russian oil have collapsed. So that is a success. The tariffs are still on. I would imagine there is a path to take them off, so that's a check and a huge success," Bessent told Politico.
