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Time of India
07-08-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Opposition condemns Trump's bullying, says Indian interests supreme
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Departing from their mocking of Trump-Modi friendship, Opposition leaders have asserted the importance of India's national interests and condemned the fresh load of US tariff. The Opposition's guarded tactical repositioning coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalling his design to turn the Trump tariff issue into a nationalist plank with an outreach to farmers. India's national interest is supreme. Any nation that arbitrarily penalises India for our time-tested policy of strategic autonomy, which is embedded in the ideology of non-alignment, doesn't understand the steel frame India is made of. From the threats of the 7th Fleet to the sanctions of nuclear tests, we have navigated our relationship with the US with self-respect and dignity," said Congress president Mallikarjun however, also attributed the situation to the Modi government's "foreign policy disaster". "Trump's 50% tariffs come at a time when our own diplomacy is disastrously dithering... Your government is clueless how to deal with it. You can't even blame this foreign policy disaster on the 70 years of Congress".Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said: "If they (USA) do this, we should also impose a 50% tariff on American exports... It is not that any country can threaten us like this... Our average tariffs on American goods are 17%. Why should we stop at 17%? We should also raise it to 50%... We need to ask them, do they not value our relationship? If India doesn't matter to them, they should also not matter to us."CPI(M) politburo said: "This unilateral move is arbitrary, dictatorial and reflects the bullying tactics of the US administration... The CPI(M) urges the Indian government to stand firm and resist succumbing to US pressure. The government must take immediate steps to protect the interests of Indian exporters who will be adversely affected by these tariff hikes".The CPI central secretariat said: "The CPI strongly condemns the bullying tactics of US President Donald Trump by imposing punitive 50% tariffs on India in retaliation for its oil trade with Russia. This blatant weaponisation of trade relations is an attack on India's autonomy and a crude attempt to enforce an exclusionary and decadent US-led world order. Such actions are aimed at coercing independent nations into submission and undermining their right to pursue sovereign foreign and economic policies."
Economic Times
07-08-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Opposition condemns Trump's bullying, says Indian interests supreme
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Departing from their mocking of Trump-Modi friendship, Opposition leaders have asserted the importance of India's national interests and condemned the fresh load of US tariff. The Opposition's guarded tactical repositioning coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalling his design to turn the Trump tariff issue into a nationalist plank with an outreach to farmers. India's national interest is supreme. Any nation that arbitrarily penalises India for our time-tested policy of strategic autonomy, which is embedded in the ideology of non-alignment, doesn't understand the steel frame India is made of. From the threats of the 7th Fleet to the sanctions of nuclear tests, we have navigated our relationship with the US with self-respect and dignity," said Congress president Mallikarjun however, also attributed the situation to the Modi government's "foreign policy disaster". "Trump's 50% tariffs come at a time when our own diplomacy is disastrously dithering... Your government is clueless how to deal with it. You can't even blame this foreign policy disaster on the 70 years of Congress".Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said: "If they (USA) do this, we should also impose a 50% tariff on American exports... It is not that any country can threaten us like this... Our average tariffs on American goods are 17%. Why should we stop at 17%? We should also raise it to 50%... We need to ask them, do they not value our relationship? If India doesn't matter to them, they should also not matter to us."CPI(M) politburo said: "This unilateral move is arbitrary, dictatorial and reflects the bullying tactics of the US administration... The CPI(M) urges the Indian government to stand firm and resist succumbing to US pressure. The government must take immediate steps to protect the interests of Indian exporters who will be adversely affected by these tariff hikes".The CPI central secretariat said: "The CPI strongly condemns the bullying tactics of US President Donald Trump by imposing punitive 50% tariffs on India in retaliation for its oil trade with Russia. This blatant weaponisation of trade relations is an attack on India's autonomy and a crude attempt to enforce an exclusionary and decadent US-led world order. Such actions are aimed at coercing independent nations into submission and undermining their right to pursue sovereign foreign and economic policies."
Time of India
07-08-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Why US-India trade talks collapsed? Who blinks first in the Trump-Modi standoff?
Trump has slapped 25% tariffs on Indian goods after trade talks collapsed over Russian oil imports and market access issues. India is resisting pressure, and both sides appear unwilling to yield. As global stakes rise, the question is, who blinks first in this Trump-Modi standoff? Show more Show less
Indian Express
04-08-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
To get most out of trade talks with US, India needs to diversify exports, reform agriculture
US President Donald Trump has delivered a strong blow to India by imposing a 25 per cent tariff, plus some unspecified penalty, on exports of most Indian goods. Several experts suggest that this may hit overall GDP growth by 20 to 30 basis points. In other words, the overall GDP growth in the financial year 2025-26 (FY26) may not reach 6.5 per cent as expected by the RBI, but may end up somewhere around 6.2 to 6.3 per cent. This is a significant loss, but not something that India cannot endure. More damaging are the social media posts of President Trump, where he says, 'I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care'. Is India a dead economy? Really? India's economy is growing at more than 6 per cent, against the US's economy growing at less than 2 per cent, India is still the fastest-growing large economy in the G20 group. Yes, the size of the Indian economy (about $4.19 trillion) is way below that of the US, which touches $30 trillion. But in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms, we are at more than $16 trillion and already the third largest economy. A few things are clear from what has happened on the tariff front. First, the Trump-Modi bonhomie seems to be over. Investing in personal relations does not mean much to President Trump. He is transactional and focused on extracting as much from other countries as possible in the pursuit of his dream of Making America Great Again (MAGA). Second, he is very upset with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not heeding Trump's sermons on ending the Ukraine-Russia war – in his campaign, the US President had announced that he would end the war in 24 hours after taking office. Now he wants to punish those who are trading with Russia, especially for energy and defence needs. India is a soft target. Third, looking at what he has done to other countries to make trade deals, including allies like the EU, Canada, and Japan, it is clear that most of the US's allies are disillusioned. Fourth, by announcing tariffs for each country separately for the same products, he has literally buried the multilateral rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), especially the Most Favoured Nations clause. And finally, he does not like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), as he sees it as a threat to the dominance of the US dollar in global trade. So, all BRICS countries are on his target list. How does one navigate the challenge of Trump's high tariffs? There are many options for India. Should Delhi retaliate by imposing high tariffs on US goods? But Indian tariff levels are already quite high, especially in agriculture (about 64.3 per cent trade weighted average). President Trump keeps referring to India as the 'tariff king'. So, such retaliation will not pay much. Prime Minister Modi has to look for better ways and convert this adversity into an opportunity. For that, we need to diversify our exports to other countries. India's total exports of goods in calendar year 2024 were $442 billion, of which $80.7 billion, roughly 18 per cent went to the US. The high tariffs will surely impact such goods. The magnitude of the hit they will take actually depends upon tariff rates imposed on competing countries for each commodity. If PM Modi goes on a drive to diversify exports to other countries, the impact of US tariffs can be minimised. Another thing to keep in mind is that our services exports to the world were $336 billion in the calendar year 2024, of which only 14 per cent ($47.5 billion) went to US. So far, Trump has not targeted services. But among goods, our top exports have been gems and jewellery (about $8 billion), pharmaceuticals (almost $7.7 billion), smartphones ($7.1 billion), and so on. Even frozen shrimps and prawns (marine products) account for $2.2 billion, and come in the top 10 goods exports to the US. Workers in Gujarat cutting diamonds and shrimp farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha are likely to face the heat of this elevated tariff structure very soon. The government may think about how best to tide over this challenge. What is it that India can offer to the US in the ongoing negotiations on the bilateral trade agreement? Both countries had envisioned taking the bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030, up from the current levels of about $200 billion. That was a very optimistic vision, and India hoped that the tariffs imposed would hover between 10 to 15 per cent, similar to that levied on countries and blocs like the UK, EU, Japan, and South Korea. But that expectation has been belied, and now it seems that there is little chance to negotiate and bring these tariffs down from 25 per cent to somewhere in between 15 to 20 per cent. This scenario seems probable only if India offers something substantial. It could be crude oil/gas purchases from the US, or defence items, or high-tech chips. Also, India can offer to lower duties on a wide variety of imports, from whiskey to luxury cars to even some agri-products such as walnuts and cranberries and put in place import quotas on other sensitive agri-products. The US's interest in agriculture is more in soya and corn, both GM crops. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had allowed GM cotton, traces of which are already in our food system. PM Modi has to take a stand, based on science, whether to allow GM food crops like rapeseed-mustard or BT brinjal, which are homegrown or to let in GM soya and corn through imports under tariff rate quotas. Reforming our own agriculture should remain a priority. Agri-R&D is the way forward, especially in the face of the high tariff duties. But the calibration to reduce duties on agri-products has to be done gradually and carefully. This is an overdue agenda, irrespective of Trump's tariff pressures today. Hope India can do it. The writer is Distinguished Professor at ICRIER. Views are personal
Express Tribune
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
India's growing missile capabilities
Listen to article Like other leading nuclear powers, India has been modernising its conventional and nuclear forces. Recent reports from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, International Institute for Strategic Studies and many other leading national and international think tanks reflect how and why India is growing and modernising its deterrent forces. Scholarly assessments could be a) prestige, b) power projection, c) escalation dominance, and d) temptation for preemptive strikes for winning short and long battles. It is imperative to note that India has been developing Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems, Multiple Independently-Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), the K-series ranging from 700km to expected 5000+km, Brahmos missile series from supersonic to hypersonic with increasing ranges from 500km to 1500km, S-400 sophisticated missile defense systems, and more importantly India's Defence Research & Development Organization has ambitious plans for Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) ranging up to 15000km. Technically, all these increasing ranges and lethality goes beyond China reaching up to the Central Asian region, Russia, Canada, the US and the Latin American countries. That said, India is not only increasing the number of nuclear weapons, but also the delivery systems required for carrying these warheads to assigned targets. The more India increases its warheads, the more delivery systems it would require. One of the sophisticated delivery systems is India's growing nuclear capable missile systems. It counts from short ranges reaching up to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). For example, it is reported in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on "India Nuclear Forces, 2024" that India's new Agni types of missiles could even go beyond ranges of 10,000km. Some scholars even assess that such ranges could further increase up to 16,000km. One wonders if India's growing missile capabilities with increasing ranges and sophistication could threaten regional and global security. Aforementioned, India's aspiration for power projection comes from its economic wherewithal and its increasing strategic partnership with the leading powers such as the US, Russia and Israel that in turn boosts up its force modernisation. The recent Trump-Modi meeting indicates how the US President might influence the Indian leadership to buy American technology including the US offer for its F-35 aircrafts. Whether or not India gets the F-35, the deterrent force modernisation and power maximisation emanating out of such an imbalanced strategic partnership increases India's security. This happens without strategically comprehending how this could potentially decrease the security of Pakistan amidst the acute security dynamics between the two South Asian rivals. India and Pakistan have already fought a number of wars, faced a number of crises and confronted many border skirmishes. Unresolved longstanding issue of Kashmir has become a nuclear flashpoint. The Balakot crisis on 26 February 2019 reflected India's failed, but escalatory risk for imposing its dominance in the region. However, Pakistan responded with the Swift Retort on the following day. The risk of escalation from conventional to nuclear level continues to exist and the growing strategic imbalance between the two rivals further worsens such escalatory risk in South Asia. The leading powers need to be cognisant of India's growing missile capabilities that accelerates arms race, security dilemma and crisis instability. The increasing imbalances emanating out of the leading powers growing strategic ventures with India adds fuel to the fire. Crisis management for the ultimate crisis resolution through the balancing act by major powers may help reduce the risk of escalation. Pakistan continues to retain strategic balance for ensuring its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Such strategic balance is India-specific for deterrence purposes while ensuring broader strategic stability in South Asia.
