Why India Will Never Bow to Trump’s Tariff Threats
It is a well-documented fact that from the time India gained independence in 1947 until 1991, the country achieved multidimensional progress without American cooperation. However, after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1990, the dynamics shifted, and India began to engage more with the United States. Consequently, by 2024, economic and military collaboration between India and the U.S. expanded across various sectors. This does not imply that India became reliant on American goodwill. Following the initiation of economic liberalization in 1991, India's vast market attracted American interest, while the U.S. became a source of modern technology for India. Nonetheless, if the current U.S. President, Donald Trump, believes he can cripple India's economy by imposing a 50 percent customs duty on Indian imports, he is gravely mistaken.
India did not bow down even when America stopped giving food to India under PL-480 during the Indo-Pak war in 1965. Pakistan fought this war completely with the help of American weapons. Despite this, it was defeated badly. After this, the Bangladesh war took place between India and Pakistan in 1971 in which India defeated Pakistan in such a way that the whole of Pakistan was separated from the middle and it was divided into two parts. One part is now called Bangladesh. In both these wars, America stood on the side of Pakistan and kept threatening India, but India stopped both the wars on its own terms, but now Trump is saying that the brief war that India fought by launching Operation Sindoor against Pakistan in the month of May was stopped only due to his mediation. Trump has made such a claim for the 35th time that the ceasefire between India and Pakistan happened on 10 May only because of his intervention. While saying this, Trump also said that he spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the phone and also talked to Pakistani rulers and warned them not to move towards a nuclear war and stop the war within 24 hours.
Trump claims that after his intervention and saying that if this does not happen, he will impose such a high duty on the goods of both the countries that both will be left stunned. First of all, this language of Trump is completely against diplomatic norms. Secondly, Prime Minister Modi has said on the floor of the Parliament that he did not have any kind of talks with any world leader on Operation Sindoor and India declared ceasefire on the request of Pakistan. The question is, why is Trump repeatedly saying that he was the one who stopped the Indo-Pak conflict? There can be many reasons for this. The first is that he wants to take the Nobel Prize for world peace because Trump is claiming that he has succeeded seven times in stopping the internal conflicts going on in the whole world. Secondly, he wants to correct the perception of the people of his country America about him and wants to send a message to the whole world that America is a country dedicated to world peace. Whereas the reality is that America is considered the number one country in terms of supplying arms to various countries. On the other hand, the Indian immigrants who have reached America still dominate. The participation of these Indians is considered important in business, American corporate world and administration. But Trump wants America to become a great country again. This means that despite being the world's largest economy, America is no longer a great country.
The question arises whether America will become a great country after imposing 50 percent customs duty on a country like India. By doing this, Trump wants to keep India under his control. He is doing this so that the reputation of Prime Minister Modi in India can be affected. He can never succeed in his objective because India remained on the target of America since independence till 1991 and it openly helped Pakistan in every way. Despite this, today Pakistan's economy is completely collapsed and India is the fourth largest economy in the world. Trump is forcing India to go into negative territory by imposing 50 percent customs duty on it. But these are the people of India who know how to face every situation. The same America which did not even help India in setting up a steel factory after independence, the same America imports steel goods from India today. There may be a million differences between the political parties of India, but whenever India has got into a tussle with another country, all Indians have forgotten their differences and helped in building the nation. Therefore, Trump should give up the idea that India can be threatened by him. We are a country that supports Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and believe that every country in the world should get its due rights. This can be done only with mutual cooperation, so it is important that Honorable Trump changes his strategy and tells the world that he cannot put India and Pakistan in the same category because even today the knowledge of Indian youth is famous in the whole of Europe including America.