US looks to become major source of India's energy, official says

India has for years been trying to widen the range of countries it buys energy from, and the United States intends to help meet that demand, a senior State Department official said in New York. The official said American hydrocarbon exports are growing, and that the US is now the largest exporter of LPG and the second-largest exporter of LNG. The remarks come after President Donald Trump last week signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 into law. The act lets the president place tariffs of up to 100% on countries that buy Russian oil and gas, a group that includes India and China. It is named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, whose earlier proposal had called for 500% tariffs. Asked about India's concerns over the bill, the official acknowledged that Congress had taken a hard line in public and said India naturally had to answer to its own domestic audience, adding that there were no hard feelings. Congress had given Trump "a new tool in his toolbox", the official said, but that did not mean it would be used at once. The act also contains a broad national security waiver that the president could choose to apply. For a long time, the official said, supplies from Venezuela and Iran had been cut off, leaving buyers with limited options. After what the official described as a successful US operation in Venezuela, countries such as India could now gain access to that market again. India once had refineries in Venezuela, the official said, but restarting them would be complicated because of the damage done to the industry under Nicolás Maduro. Energy comes up frequently in talks between the two governments, including between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Secretary Marco Rubio, and those conversations will continue, the official said. India's effort to diversify its energy supply predates the war, the official added, and the task now is to speed it up.