Decode Trump's strategy to finesse India's game plan

America's China tariff pause sends signals that should act as inputs for our own trade ambitions

- AJIT RANADE

The US and China have agreed to a 90-day truce in their trade war, with the former reducing tariffs from 145% to 30% on Chinese imports and the latter cutting them from 125% to 10% on US goods. After the tough talk of US President Donald Trump on 'Liberation Day,' this appears to be a climbdown. But it is only a tactical retreat. The truce was an outcome of marathon negotiations in Switzerland, a neutral country. Trump supporters will say that he achieved the goal of getting China to promise greater purchases of US goods, especially farm and energy products, and some concessions on intellectual property rights.

China has pledged to improve protection of trade secrets, by stricter enforcement against unauthorized disclosures by government personnel and criminal penalties for trade-secret theft. They also promised more vigorous protection of pharma patents, revisions in certain patent and trademark laws, a crackdown on counterfeiting and piracy, and more effective enforcement in general.

The Trump camp sees these as important, but outcomes will depend on enforcement and it will take time before we know whether the US tariff threat has really worked.