Preparing for Trump 2.0

India needs a proper strategy to respond to the US President-elect's threats on tariffs

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As the new year kicks off, India must ready itself for the tariff threats of the incoming Donald Trump-led Republican administration. The US President-elect considers tariffs as the most beautiful word in the dictionary and will weaponize it to demand reciprocity from countries, including India, that have trade surpluses with the US. Trump has pledged a 60% tax on Chinese imports, besides an across-the-board tariff up to 20% on everything else the US imports. However, it remains far from clear whether this is more bark than bite as an opening gambit on the incoming US president's part for negotiating trade deals. Or does reciprocity imply that India charges the same tariffs the US does? As has been rightly argued by former ambassador VS Seshadri, this would go against the schedule of tariff commitments that each World Trade Organization (WTO) member has made. More importantly, it would also go against the principle of "less than full reciprocity" for developing countries like India that has been followed in several rounds of WT