Brokerages cautious on India growth

US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump's latest announcement of reciprocal tariffs on 60 trading partners, including a 27% US-discounted tariff on India, has raised concerns among brokerages, who see it as a risk to India's growth estimates.

- ANANYA GROVER

However, Indian indices remained relatively resilient compared to their Asian peers.

According to HSBC Global Research, the latest tariffs pose significant downside risks to the growth outlook of multiple Asian economies in 2025. The report noted that while these tariffs will raise price pressures in the US, they will lower them in Asia, potentially exacerbating deflationary pressures in certain industries. This, in turn, could trigger a tariff cascade, whereby individual economies impose tariffs on each other as well (and, indeed, on China, given its immense competitiveness). In such a scenario, growth would still decline but the outlook for inflation in the region would be more muddled.