Trump thinks he can 'WIN' by bullying, duplicity and pressure tactics; he doesn't get India or PM Modi

First Post

2 days ago

Trump might not understand the nuances of economic theory or trade, but he's bloody good at setting the narrative read more
The United States evidently feels that the post-war multilateral trading system that it built and maintained for so long is no longer serving its purpose. Smarting and insecure, the world's preeminent power is now keen to switch to a power-based economic rearrangement where deals will be struck based on relative hard power of countries and downstream of personal relationships.
What has complicated matters further is the task of chaperoning this complete overhauling of America's (and perhaps global) trade policy – abandoning all rules of free trade in favour of an extractive, hierarchical tributary system – has fallen on Donald Trump, the leader of the MAGA cult, a vainglorious bully with a chronic proclivity for exaggeration and lying, a weapons-grade narcissist convinced of his own 'stable genius', a vindictive egotist who gives in to flattery and torches bilateral ties over perceived slights.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Trump has remade the Republican Party in his image. He bends the structures of American democracy and has exposed inherent weaknesses of its vaunted institutions. For instance, he recently fired America's chief statistician for releasing a jobs report that he didn't like. That report for the month of July indicated fewer jobs and a significant slowdown in the economy. A few days later at a press conference, Trump fished out a mysterious chart before the cameras and proceeded to claim that these 'all new numbers' are 'pretty amazing'.
Trump might not understand the nuances of economic theory or trade, but he's bloody good at setting the narrative. Right now, he has convinced his MAGA base that 'billions of dollars are pouring in' from all corners of the world due to his tariffs. The reality is, as analysts at Goldman Sachs point out, 'fully four-fifths of the tariffs have so far been borne by American consumers and firms' with American carmakers Ford or GM picking up '$800m and $1.1bn in tariff costs, respectively, in the second quarter of this year alone.'
That doesn't matter so long as Trump convinces his followers that they are 'winning'. The weaponization of American consumer market is at the top of Trump's economic agenda, and India finds itself among countries at the receiving end of Trump's imperial whim.
It is hard to pinpoint the exact reason why Trump has gone after India with all the vengeance of a scorned bully, but a combination of several factors possibly led to Trump imposing a 50% levy on Indian exports, unilaterally scuttling an interim trade deal that was ready for his approval, and seeking to constrain India's foreign policy choices through onerous conditions imposed on India's energy security.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Trump has made a spate of falsified remarks on India-Pakistan ceasefire, forcefully claimed a mediator's role on Kashmir, put pressure on prime minister Narendra Modi to yield to a one-sided trade deal that would spell disaster for India's agriculture and dairy sectors, and has demanded that India abandon its long-standing relationship with Russia.
To suggest that Trump's imposition of tariffs is due to a failure of India's foreign policy, or Modi's personal failure, is wrong.
It is incumbent on a belief that Trump is a rational actor. He isn't. The American president slapped 50% tariff on Brazil, a country with which the US runs a multimillion-dollar trade surplus, because he is pally with former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and thinks Bolsonaro is being unjustly persecuted.
What Trump wants is to ride roughshod over India's red lines, crack open India's sensitive agriculture and dairy sectors and for Modi to fly down to Washington DC, make a headline commitment which Trump will then advertise as a 'massive win' to his base and humiliate the Indian prime minister publicly for daring to defy his bogus claim that he authored the India-Pakistan ceasefire.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
What Trump wants, essentially, is for Modi to bend his knee before his Royal Highness the President of the United States, lie supine and submit India's interests before his feet before Trump may consider giving a tariff relief to India.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta cuts to the chase in Indian Express. 'Trump is imperialism on steroids. The reset of capitalism is not in favour of mitigating environmental risk, more social protection or even coherent industrial policy. If this is a reset, it is towards a more coercive domestic political system, accelerating oligarchy, increasing discretion, throwing capitalism into a more speculative tailspin, and outright coercion of others.'
Despite Trump's brazen insults and repeated hectoring, not to speak of the extractive tariff rate of 50% that has put the entire India-US relationship at risk, New Delhi has so far been reticent in rhetoric beyond pushing back against the US president's demonstrably false and unjustified remarks.
The prime minister has shown quiet resolve without seeking to deepen the crisis. Without directly referring to the US president or the collapsed trade deal, Modi has exhorted Indians to 'buy local, sell local' to boost Make in India, and stressed Thursday, a few hours after Trump doubled the levy, that he will never compromise on the interests of India's farmers, dairy sector workers, livestock breeders and fisherfolk even if he pays 'a heavy price for it.'
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
It indicates that the nub of the problem lies in precisely these thresholds that India fiercely guards and Trump is desperate to cross. The American president has expressed his frustration with lack of access in India's dairy and agri sectors before. He has called India 'tariff king' and 'abuser' of trade policies, claiming that India 'unfairly' protects its markets.
Data reveals, however, that India's simple average tariff – comprising levies on both agriculture and non-agriculture products – is around 16%, around the same ballpark figure as Bangladesh 14.1%, Turkey 16.2% and Argentina 13.4%. When it comes to 'weighted average tariffs', that quantify the tariff based on the volume of trade, India is ranked 64 among 144 nations with a levy of 4.6%. In comparison, Vietnam has a levy of 5.1%, Indonesia 5.7% and the European Union 5%.
India's logic behind protecting these sectors, where over 85% of agricultural households are subsistence farmers who are either landless or hold fragmented plots that amount to just 47.3% of crop area, is sound.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
The majority of livestock breeders in India keep only two to three animals. Evidently, this small-scale structure makes Indian farmers and breeders vulnerable to competition from foreign producers who operate at a much larger scale and benefit from automation, advanced technologies and significant state subsidies.
India's dairy sector alone provides employment for about 80 million people. This vast, unorganized sector run by cooperatives has high female labour participation, leading to significant women empowerment. Foreign competition from organized multinational agribusinesses may jeopardize jobs, worsen rural distress and even increase farmer suicides.
Alongside, there are risks involved in crossing culture and dietary barriers. American dairy products often originate from cattle fed on non-vegetarian additives or 'blood meal' that may include meat or blood from that would conflict severely with Indian cultural and religious norms where majority of citizens are Hindus who revere the cow and consume strictly vegetarian diet.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Still, reports indicate that during negotiations India was ready to offer unprecedented access to some areas while protecting the most sensitive segments of its developmental economy. Intent on boasting that he made India kneel before him, Trump took a maximalist position and failed to appreciate the extra mile India was walking in good faith. A public humiliation of the Indian prime minister at the altar of Trump's ego cannot be part of a 'mutually beneficial' trade deal.
India isn't an American vassal state or in need of Trump's security umbrella. It is certainly not, as Trump claims, a 'dead economy'. The US president also claimed that America foes 'very little business with India'. He perhaps forgot that during Modi's visit to Washington DC in February this year, both sides pledged to double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030 from the current figure of $131.84 billion. The US is India's largest trading partner for four consecutive years till 2024-25, and in the last fiscal India's exports to America rose by 11.6% to $86.51 billion.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
India is a $4.1 trillion economy on the verge of moving past Germany and Japan to become the world's third largest. It is also the world's fastest growing among major economies. India is demographically young, and despite gazillions of problems, has pulled 171 million people out of extreme poverty in the past decade. The Global Firepower Military Strength Ranking places India's military on fourth spot after the US, Russia and China. And while India is the second-largest importer of arms, it is also rapidly developing our indigenous capabilities.
As a postcolonial society, Indians place a high premium on autonomy, self-respect and is clear about its own place in the world. If the Americans want access to the world's largest consumer market, they will sign a deal with a modicum of fairness instead of trying to kick India around.
Among the mistakes Trump did was assume that India is running out of options and chose to target India's buying of Russian oil. The attempt reeked of arrogance from a leader who doesn't understand India. It was also a callous shifting of goalposts after getting frustrated at not being able to get anywhere with his pressure campaign.
India has repeatedly pointed out that India's oil imports including from Russia are based on market factors and done with the overall objective of ensuring the energy security of 1.4 billion people. India buys Russian seaborne crude below the price cap set by G7 and helps cool global oil prices, an understanding that was reached with the previous Biden administration. It means that if India does not pick up Russian crude, it may result in global inflation of oil prices.
Second, India is not the biggest purchaser of Russian oil. It's China. If purchasing of Russian energy is the criteria for additional tariff, then the Trump administration should impose an even greater tariff on Beijing. It does not. As Trump's aide Peter Navarro candidly admitted, Trump hasn't taken that step even though China is the top buyer of Russian crude, importing $62.6 billion worth of Russian oil in 2024 compared to India's $52.7 billion, because 'we don't want to get to a point where we actually hurt ourselves.'
It means Trump's additional tariff on India has no moral justification. It is plain bullying by an American president who considers India as a semi-sovereign country, or China too powerful to mess around with.
It is testament also to the kind of people Trump has surrounded himself with in his second term that Navarro, the White House trade adviser, claimed India uses 'American dollars to buy Russian oil. Russia then uses those American dollars that come from India to finance its armaments to kill Ukrainians' rather theatrically, without knowing that most of India's oil trade with Russia is settled in dirhams, the currency of UAE because New Delhi has been unable to establish a direct 'rupee-rouble mechanism' with Moscow.
The most interesting part of Trump's tariff and his vitriolic comments about India that it is 'not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits,' is that a major buyer of Russian crude refined by India is the United States itself. That's the precise reason why Trump's extra 25% levy imposed on Indian exports exempts gasoline or diesel sold by India.
Energy Watch reported, quoting data from a February 2024 report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), that 'the US was the largest importer of oil products made from Russian crude after the G7-led price cap came into effect in December 2022. Many of those products were shipped from India.'
There's more. While Trump has penalized India for buying Russian oil, it continues to import significant quantities of Russian fertilizers and chemicals.
Fertilizer imports from Russia into the US were about $1.1 billion in 2024 and increased by 21% in early 2025 compared with previous years, mostly in the form of urea and urea ammonium nitrate. America's total combined imports of fertilizers and inorganic chemicals from Russia in 2024 amount to roughly $1.98 billion ($1.3 billion in fertilizers along with $683 million in inorganic chemicals).
If the US can keep buying refined fuel sourced from Russia and large amounts of fertilizers and other chemicals from Moscow to cater to its national interest, so can India to secure its energy interest for a billion-plus people. That Trump considers American national interest superior to India's indicates a conceited worldview, and intrinsic lack of respect for US strategic partner.
It is instructive that while Trump has gone after New Delhi's move to secure predictable and affordable energy for Indians, he has wilfully ignored the fact that the world's largest buyer of Russian gas in dollar terms is the European Union (EU), while China is the biggest buyer of Russian fossil fuels overall. In 2024, the EU imported approximately $23.6 billion worth of Russian gas, making it the biggest market for Russian natural gas exports by value.
Media reports point out, collating data from Kpler and Politico Europe, 'that in the first 15 days of 2025, the 27 EU countries imported a record-high 837,300 metric tons of LNG from Russia. This has raised concerns that billions of dollars could be fueling Moscow's war in Ukraine.'
Of course, for Trump the villain of the piece is India because he needed a leverage to pile up pressure and bring India to heel during negotiations. This chicanery is consistent with Trump's character. He has tried around three dozen times to steal credit for India-Pakistan ceasefire despite the Indian prime minister and foreign minister clarifying on the floor of the Parliament that the development was a bilateral achievement through military channels and no world leader had anything to do with the outcome.
Trump has also turned trade negotiations into a veritable circus where he can display his full range of 'dealmaking skills', that includes unpredictability, bullying, deception, duplicity and plain lies. The Swiss tried hard to negotiate and returned with a high 39% tariff, Brazil got burnt at the stake with 50% with president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva telling Reuters in an interview that 'he saw no room for direct talks now with Trump that would likely be a humiliation.' Even US ally Japan is grappling with the aftermath of a deal that keeps on shifting its shape.
With the Russian president agreeing to sit across the table, much may depend on the August 15 talks between Trump and Putin in Alaska. It is possible that a deal there may eventually lead to a reduction in tariff on India. A tactical understanding leading to a suboptimal trade deal might be the best-case scenario. Trump will eventually figure out that messing around with India hasn't been a clever move. His shenanigans have undone three decades of dedicated work by both countries to build trust.