{"id":420658,"date":"2025-09-13T08:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/420658\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T08:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:44:11","slug":"doublespeak-on-the-trump-administrations-actions-and-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/420658\/","title":{"rendered":"\u200bDoublespeak: On the Trump administration\u2019s actions and India \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weeks after calling off the visit of trade negotiators to Delhi, the U.S. administration says it has invited Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and the Indian trade team to Washington to resume talks for the India-U.S. FTA. The announcement came days after U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalled<\/a>, through public comments and social media posts, a halt to tensions of the last four months. On Thursday (September 11, 2025), U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr. Trump\u2019s Ambassador-designate to India Sergio Gor also said they expect ties to be smooth<\/a>, a trade deal to be announced shortly, and a Quad Summit later this year. Despite the U.S.\u2019s punitive actions against India on trade, visas, deportations, and Mr. Trump\u2019s comments on Operation Sindoor<\/a>, the ceasefire and his dealings with Pakistan, New Delhi has appeared prepared to move forward as well, with Mr. Goyal and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar confirming India\u2019s active engagement with the U.S. However, other comments by the Trump administration on India\u2019s import of Russian oil could throw a spanner in the works. Mr. Gor has said that stopping the imports by India remains the U.S.\u2019s \u201ctop priority\u201d, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said that India has \u201cgot to stop\u201d buying Russian oil for a U.S. trade deal. Meanwhile, reports suggest that Mr. Trump has personally asked the European Union to slap \u201c100% sanctions\u201d on India and China to make Russia stop the Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n

The U.S.\u2019s doublespeak will disappoint many in government and industry circles who had expressed relief over the Modi-Trump d\u00e9tente, and the resumption of trade talks. At 50%, India and Brazil face the highest U.S. tariffs, and Indian textile exporters have begun to see orders being cancelled. According to the Chief Economic Adviser, V. Anantha Nageswaran, the tariffs could mean a loss of half a per cent from India\u2019s GDP, and job losses will be a concern as well. In theory, the government could consider the U.S.\u2019s demands on reducing Russian oil if they had not been served as an ultimatum. However, even if New Delhi was so inclined, Washington is making the choice much harder with its crudely worded diktats. While the Modi government did accept the U.S. demands to stop the imports of Iranian and Venezuelan oil earlier, repeating that in 2025 with Russia is more complex. While the costs of oil sanctions and high tariffs can be absorbed, the costs of caving in now and the resultant reputational damage may seem greater in the balance.<\/p>\n

Published – September 13, 2025 12:20 am IST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weeks after calling off the visit of trade negotiators to Delhi, the U.S. administration says it has invited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[143895,143893,143900,143899,143891,143890,143896,101822,143897,143898,143889,143892,143894,49,978,659,143888,143901],"class_list":{"0":"post-420658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-ambassador-designate-to-india","9":"tag-halt-to-tensions","10":"tag-india-and-brazil-and-highest-u-s-tariffs","11":"tag-india-and-the-buying-of-russian-oil","12":"tag-india-u-s-free-trade-agreement","13":"tag-indian-trade-team-to-washington","14":"tag-quad-summit","15":"tag-reputational-damage","16":"tag-trade-visas-deportations","17":"tag-trumps-comments-on-operation-sindoor-ceasefire-and-dealings-with-pakistan","18":"tag-u-s-administration","19":"tag-u-s-president-donald-trump-and-prime-minister-narendra-modi","20":"tag-u-s-secretary-of-state","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-visit-of-trade-negotiators-to-delhi","25":"tag-washington-and-crudely-worded-diktats"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420658","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=420658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}