A United Front

What the Indian media gets wrong about Modi and Trump, and Modi and the world / Politics

- / DANIEL BLOCK

On a cloudy April afternoon, US President Donald Trump strutted into the White House Rose Garden to announce that he was enacting a series of major tariffs. "My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day," Trump said. "Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than fifty years. But it is not going to happen anymore."

The fact that Trump was enacting tariffs was hardly a surprise. Every global-economic analyst knew that the president, who once said tariff was "the most beautiful word in the dictionary," was planning to put up barriers to foreign trade. The magnitude of his restrictions nonetheless came as a shock. Rather than targeting a small set of states or a small group of imports, Trump established a baseline, ten-percent tariff on all but a few products.

He then placed additional levies on countries that exported more to the United States than they imported from it—which is to say, almost all of them. He did not discriminate between Washington’s friends and rivals. China was hit with enormous tariffs, yes. But so was Japan. Venezuela faced new levies. But so did the European Union.

So, too, did India. Under Trump’s rates, Indian imports to the US would be subject to 26 percent tariffs. “India, very, very, tough,” the president said, as he waved around a chart that laid out the levies. “Very tough.” His announcement was a clear setback for New Delhi, which had advocated for Washington to impose lower barriers. In fact, less than two months earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met with Trump in the United States and pushed for lower tariffs. His efforts came up short.