India Has To Build Its Strength To Sail Tariff Waters

If a new global economic order is emerging, why should we delay embracing it?

- SHASHI SHEKHAR

I have always wondered what makes our society forget the lessons learnt during trying times. Those hurt by Trump's tariff tantrums should remember the deadly days of the covid-19 pandemic. The US, along with rich nations, erected regulatory walls to hoard drugs and vaccines for their citizens.

It's the same US that gave the clarion call for the world being a "global village" on the lines of India's Vasudhaiv Kutumbkum (the whole world is a family), though with questionable intent. While our forefathers were moved by the altruistic vision of sharing with the world, US president Bill Clinton, who popularised "global village", was focused on maximising his country's profits.

The reality of the global village unravelled during the pandemic. Trump mocked covid's very existence and flung his mask in a show of defiance. However, when cemeteries started filling up, he labelled it a "Chinese pandemic". He ordered reserving four vaccines per US citizen. No one knows how much it helped, but the pandemic wiped off many "villages" from the "globe".