Donald Trump’s tariff tantrum: A gentleman’s guide to economic coercion

India Today

Donald Trump is threatening 50% tariffs on Indian goods — all because we’re buying discounted Russian oil.

Transcript

00:00A little over six months after Donald Trump became president for a second time,

00:14Jalwa hamne dekh liya hai.

00:16Donald Trump is upset, again.

00:19And at this point, it's less of a newsflash and more of a weather update.

00:23This time, he's furious with India.

00:25Why? Because we're buying Russian oil at a discount during a war.

00:29Now, just to clarify, India is not sneaking barrels of oil under cover of night.

00:33We're buying it openly, legally and with full transparency.

00:37Because we need it.

00:37To power a country of 1.4 billion people.

00:40To keep inflation in check.

00:41To keep growth alive.

00:42And yet, Mr. Trump wants to punish us for that.

00:45And to punish us, Trump has proposed a rather quaint little move.

00:49Tariffs.

00:5025% to start with.

00:51More if he's feeling particularly colonial.

00:54Now, when asked about the fact that America also imports things from Russia,

00:57Uranium, Fertilizer, various bits that keep Teslas functioning.

01:01Trump said,

01:02I don't know anything about it.

01:03I'd have to check.

01:04Excellent.

01:05Lovely to see that decades into public life,

01:07he's finally decided to Google something.

01:09But let's not pretend this is about oil.

01:11This is about control.

01:12They're gonna forget that I got them.

01:14Nobody's gonna mention it.

01:15What Mr. Trump is doing has a name.

01:17It's called Economic Coercion.

01:19A method the US has mastered over the years.

01:21Right after inventing freedom and ignoring its own gun laws.

01:24Former RBI Governor Urjit Patel has a more elegant term.

01:28Hegemonic sanction.

01:30Which is just a polite economist's way of saying the global bully with a checkbook.

01:34You see, out of 1300 sanctions imposed worldwide since 1949,

01:39the US is responsible for nearly 500.

01:42That's not foreign policy.

01:43That's a hobby.

01:44India responded, of course, calmly, diplomatically.

01:47We call the criticism unjustified and unreasonable.

01:50Which in Indian diplomacy is the equivalent of flipping the bird while sipping dogjeeling's first flush.

01:57Yes, Trump says he's only trying to end the war.

02:00Sure.

02:00Just like McDonald's is a health food chain.

02:03This is not about peace.

02:04This is about pressure.

02:05A man who wants to try to buy Greenland is not trying to sell moral lectures.

02:09But here's the thing.

02:10India is not the help anymore.

02:12We're not here to set the table and nod politely.

02:15We've got leverage.

02:16Markets.

02:17Options.

02:18So if Mr. Trump wants a tariff war, by all means, let him.

02:22We've survived worse.

02:23We've survived British rule, demonetization and three seasons of Indian matchmaking.

02:28We'll survive this too.

02:30For more no-fluff explainers and commentaries like this one,

02:33follow more on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

02:36I'm Manish Abhijali.

02:38First things first.

02:46We'll

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