White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Sunday intensified his criticism of social media platform X, after a fact-check disputed his claims about India’s purchase of Russian oil.
Navarro, Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing under President Donald Trump, dismissed X’s community notes as “crap” and alleged they were influenced by “foreign interests” meddling in US economics and politics. He also launched a user poll to challenge the platform’s moderation practices.
“Should X put up posts where foreign interests masquerade as objective observers and interfere with domestic U.S. economics and politics? Take poll on next post,” Navarro wrote, accusing Indian “special interests” of shaping the narrative on Russian oil.
The poll, however, appeared to backfire—at the time of reporting, 60.3% of respondents voted “Yes”, 19.3% voted “No”, and 20.3% chose “Hell no. It’s obscene”.
Navarro had earlier claimed that India was profiteering from discounted Russian oil and that its tariffs were costing American jobs. X fact-checkers countered by pointing out that India’s energy imports diversified after the Ukraine war and that such claims were misleading.
Reacting sharply, Navarro accused Elon Musk of allowing “propaganda” on the platform. “India buys Russian oil solely to profiteer. It didn’t buy any before Russia invaded Ukraine. Stop killing Ukrainians. Stop taking American jobs,” he posted.
His remarks followed a Washington Post report highlighting tensions within the Trump administration over its approach to New Delhi. Navarro dismissed the article as “fake news”, reiterating that India’s tariffs were harming US workers while its oil purchases were funding Russia’s war machine.
