{"id":326360,"date":"2025-08-07T22:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T22:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326360\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T22:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T22:56:10","slug":"modi-ready-to-pay-a-heavy-price-as-india-seeks-to-resist-trump-tariffs-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326360\/","title":{"rendered":"Modi ready to \u2018pay a heavy price\u2019 as India seeks to resist Trump tariffs | India"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi<\/a>, has said he is ready to \u201cpay a very heavy price\u201d for resisting US attempts to dictate the country\u2019s trade policies, as India took a defiant position in the wake of Trump\u2019s punitive export tariffs.<\/p>\n

In an executive order signed on Wednesday, Trump slapped India with an additional 25% tariff<\/a>, in a move he described as punishment for continuing to purchase large quantities of Russian oil and \u201cfuelling Russia\u2019s war machine\u201d. It came on top of a 25% tariff for Indian exports already announced by the US president.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s foreign ministry hit back almost instantly, calling the additional tariff \u201cunfair, unjustified and unreasonable\u201d and accusing the US of double standards, as other countries also importing Russian oil have not faced the same punitive action.<\/p>\n

In a speech on Wednesday night which did not directly mention Trump or the new tariffs, Modi appeared defiant as he addressed one of the biggest sticking points in India\u2019s ongoing trade negotiations with the US over tariffs.<\/p>\n

According to Indian officials, the US has been pushing India to allow for the import of American genetically modified (GM) crops into the country and for duty-free imports on US farm and dairy products.<\/p>\n

However, protecting India\u2019s hundreds of millions of farmers \u2013 who are a powerful political lobby \u2013 is seen as a highly sensitive area for the Modi government. Indian officials said these areas were \u201cnon-negotiable on principle\u201d and were firm that \u201cwe can\u2019t import GM\u201d.<\/p>\n

That stance was reflected in Modi\u2019s speech on Wednesday night. \u201cIndia will never compromise on the interests of its farmers, livestock rearers and fisherfolk,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I know that I will personally have to pay a very heavy price for this, but I am ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

While trade negotiations continue between Indian and US officials, it was widely acknowledged they had been torpedoed by Trump\u2019s announcement of a total 50% tariffs for India, which will come into effect on 27 August unless another deal is agreed in time.<\/p>\n

Shashi Tharoor, an MP for the opposition Congress party, said the tariffs seemed to signal \u201csome other hidden message from Washington\u201d and declared that India should \u201calso impose a 50% tariff on US goods\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Congress party president, Mallikarjun Kharge, slammed the US attempt to use tariffs to coerce India into shifting its trade and foreign policies, which have seen it maintain a relationship with Russia for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia\u2019s national interest is supreme,\u201d said Kharge. \u201cAny nation that arbitrarily penalises India for our time-tested policy of strategic autonomy \u2026 doesn\u2019t understand the steel frame India is made of.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opposition also directed anger towards the BJP government and the prime minister, with opposition MP Tejashwi Yadav accusing Modi of \u201cdancing to America\u2019s tune\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not long ago, Indian media had been celebrating the \u201cspecial relationship\u201d between Modi and Trump and its benefits for India, but by Wednesday the mood had shifted, and anti-American and anti-Trump sentiment was rife across India\u2019s newspapers and TV channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia\u2019s sovereignty is non-negotiable and its foreign policy choices cannot be manipulated by other countries, no matter how significant their own ties with India are,\u201d ran an editorial in The Hindu newspaper.<\/p>\n

In his Indian Express column, Pratap Bhanu Mehta called Trump \u201cimperialism on steroids\u201d and said that \u201ccapitulating to this emerging American imperial state, under the euphemisms of reform, realism or capitalist reset, is an affront to both India\u2019s dignity and its interests\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump was widely accused of hypocrisy, as China \u2013 another major buyer of Russian oil \u2013 was not facing the same punishing tariffs and neither was Turkey. There was also deep-rooted scepticism that Trump was making the decision for the benefit of Ukraine and the feeling that the president had ultimately shot himself in the foot by turning on India.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the latest dust-up, India remained one of the few nations on earth where Trump was not deeply disliked,\u201d wrote the author Jonah Blank. \u201cIn sorting through what went wrong, Indians should remember two pieces of advice often given to the lovelorn. First: it\u2019s not you, it\u2019s him. Second: he\u2019s not capable of a relationship with anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer in international relations at King\u2019s College London, who specialises in south Asia, emphasised that trade had long been a \u201ctesty issue\u201d between New Delhi and Washington, but while \u201cwhat\u2019s happening now is not unprecedented, it is sharper in tone and more coercive in method\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most serious public rift in years, but neither side benefits from a rupture,\u201d he said. \u201cI expect India to hold firm on buying Russian oil, frame it as a matter of sovereignty and energy security, and quietly look for an off-ramp.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US is India\u2019s largest export market, where shipments totalled nearly $87bn (\u00a365bn) in 2024. Experts said the economic impact of 50% tariffs on Indian exports to the US was likely to be sizeable, particularly in certain sectors such as textiles, ready-made clothes, auto-components, steel and gems, and would put India at a major disadvantage compared with regional competitors such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and China.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a severe setback. Nearly 55% of our shipments to the US will be affected,\u201d said SC Ralhan, the president of the federation of Indian export organisations.<\/p>\n

Prerna Prabhakar, a senior associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, a Delhi thinktank, emphasised that the US was \u201cdefinitely a very important export destination for India\u201d. She said that if the 50% tariffs do come into play \u201csome sectors are going to have a very, very hard time\u201d, with smaller textile and apparel firms likely to take a major hit.<\/p>\n

However, Prabhakar emphasised that India\u2019s own high tariffs meant it still only accounted for 2% of exports globally. Rather than responding to Trump by raising tariffs, Prabhakar said that India\u2019s approach should instead be to reduce them, to better integrate itself into global markets and open up other trade opportunities with regions such as the EU, Africa and Latin America.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf India wants to offset this problem of being at a disadvantage in the US market, it has to work on its own competitiveness issues,\u201d she said. \u201cFundamental to that is lowering its own tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has said he is ready to \u201cpay a very heavy price\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-326360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114989956062387208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}