{"id":290245,"date":"2025-10-09T21:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290245\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T21:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:32:10","slug":"trumps-trade-war-has-india-hugging-britain-close-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290245\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s trade war has India hugging Britain close \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Later came Rishi Sunak, particularly revered in India for becoming the first prime minister of Indian descent to lead the former colonial power. Despite that, he\u00a0never held much hope<\/a>\u00a0for striking a deal with the notoriously-difficult negotiators, and was booted out of office without clinching an agreement.<\/p>\n

Then came Trump\u2019s return. When the U.S. president swiftly made good on his threats to hit nations, both friend and foe, with tariffs, it sent world powers scrambling for alternative markets. Just five months after Trump\u2019s second inauguration, Modi\u00a0dashed to Britain<\/a>\u00a0to ink a free trade agreement that the\u00a0British government\u00a0argued would mark a multi-billion pound export boost for the U.K.<\/p>\n

Trump has only highlighted India’s need for new trading partners with his imposition of steep tariffs on New Delhi over Modi’s refusal to stop buying oil from Moscow. Journalists traveling with Starmer to India pressed the British PM on whether he\u2019d tell Modi to divest. He dodged the question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"India spent years stringing London along over a free trade deal coveted by a post-Brexit Britain. | Ashish Vaishnav\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n

At a press conference after spending the day with his Indian counterpart, Starmer answered two questions on the subject in only the most opaque terms. When the cameras stopped rolling, aides clarified that the pair had indeed discussed Russian oil.<\/p>\n

It’s not the first time Starmer has played the global pragmatist, regardless of the moral matters at stake.<\/p>\n

Starmer held a\u00a0landmark meeting<\/a>\u00a0with Chinese President Xi Jinping last year, and twice declined to condemn the jailing of dozens of pro-democracy figures in another former British colony, Hong Kong, under authoritarian laws imposed by Beijing. The U.K. \u201cmustn\u2019t lose \u2026 the opportunity for our economy,\u201d\u00a0Starmer said<\/a>,\u00a0opting not to publicly rebuke Beijing over what is an affront to many in Britain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Later came Rishi Sunak, particularly revered in India for becoming the first prime minister of Indian descent to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":290246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[147227,356,262,69,264,8464,1567,3195,268,17723,135,40026,50,270,27535,145495,257,2175,130,47280,148902,273,376,67,274,103,11762],"class_list":{"0":"post-290245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-boris-johnson","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-defense","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-exports","13":"tag-hong-kong","14":"tag-india","15":"tag-industry","16":"tag-investment","17":"tag-keir-starmer","18":"tag-markets","19":"tag-missions","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-oil","22":"tag-political-economy","23":"tag-rishi-sunak","24":"tag-russia","25":"tag-tariffs","26":"tag-trade","27":"tag-trade-agreements","28":"tag-u-k-trade","29":"tag-ukraine","30":"tag-united-kingdom","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-vladimir-putin","33":"tag-world","34":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115346351722304355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}