00:00President Trump has no understanding of economics and statecraft, that he has damaged the relationship
00:06between India and the United States, that he has pushed India closer to Russia and China.
00:12Modi is smart, Modi is playing his cards, and he's reminding the US that he has a choice.
00:17Look, I don't know why anyone would take anything that Navarro says seriously. This is the guy that
00:21is alleged to have made up quotes in a book. This is not Modi's war, this is Putin's war.
00:27India is a super, super important player in the 21st century. It's only going to get more powerful.
00:32Ed, thank you so much for talking to me, and I really appreciate your time.
00:36If you could just introduce yourself, your full name, please, and how you want us to designate you.
00:44Sure thing. So my name is Ed Price, and I'm an independent analyst who also teaches at NYU.
00:52Great. I don't know if you've seen the remarks from the Oval Office today. When asked about removing
01:00tariffs on India today, President Trump stated that we get along very well with India, but at the same
01:07time, he did make references to the tariffs that are imposed in India on US companies. Now, how
01:16should this seemingly contradicting messaging be interpreted? And what does the trajectory of
01:23this relationship from its origins to the present moment reveal about the underlying tensions?
01:30Well, thanks for having me on. I used to think that President Donald Trump had a very poor
01:35understanding of economics and statecraft. And I realize now that that was wrong. And in fact,
01:41President Trump has no understanding of economics and statecraft. That is the only conclusion that I
01:46can draw, given the way that he's behaving towards India. Now, there is some case in a sort of good
01:52old fashioned great power competition to have China and the USA go at it against each other. There's some
01:58case for Russia and the USA to go at it against each other. It's one of our national hobbies. It's one
02:04of their national hobbies. But there is absolutely no reason, particularly in the current moment, to have
02:10the United States and India clash like this, it wasn't necessary. And it was entirely the doing of
02:17the US side. Yes, India does place tariffs on items. I mean, by the way, so do we now. But the point is that
02:23India has a developing economy. So the entire conception of the post war order was that those economies that
02:30were developing, rather than developed, would get the ability to put a higher tariff on goods. So I
02:35really don't know what he's talking about. I think that he has damaged the relationship between India
02:41and the United States. And it seems to me that he either does not understand the US national interest, or
02:47is actively working against it, which is mind blowing.
02:50A few days ago, we did see a united front that that appears to be forming, which is President Xi
02:56being flanked by President Putin and Prime Minister Modi, you know, all in one together, in one frame and one picture.
03:06How has President Trump's status strategy really backfired and strengthen the alliance that the United
03:14States still has seeked to counter over these years?
03:17Yes, I don't know that President Donald Trump has has sought to counter anyone effectively. He seems to give
03:25Vladimir Putin whatever he wants. He doesn't really seem to be able to hold the line in his tariff walk
03:32with President Xi Jinping. But yes, it does seem that he has pushed India closer to Russia and China. I
03:38would just put a little word of warning on that, though, it comes with a health warning, because it is not
03:43the case that India, China and Russia are the best of friends. I mean, this is an outsider
03:49speaking. I'm a Westerner, a US citizen. But it's pretty obvious with reference to history, as you just
03:54mentioned, that the Chinese and the Russians have a long term complaint with each other. If I was Moscow, I'd be most
04:01worried about Siberia rather than Ukraine, to be honest with you. And of course, the Chinese and the Indians have very
04:07deep civilizational differences and a border dispute right up until the present day. So yes, President Trump has pushed
04:15Modi closer to Putin and Xi. But I wouldn't look at that visual that we saw, that compelling visual, and think
04:21that it is necessarily the case that those three men will now always work together. Modi is smart, Modi is
04:27playing his cards, and he's reminding the US that he has a choice.
04:30Now, some serious allegations coming in from Jake Sullivan, who has accused Trump of sacrificing
04:39India relations to advancing family business interests in Pakistan. To what extent might
04:44personal financial considerations be influencing the broader foreign policy decisions by the Trump
04:51administration, particularly keeping Pakistan in mind?
04:54Well, Jake Sullivan is a partisan political actor, so I won't remark on his views.
05:00I'm an independent analyst. But it does seem that the President of the United States has active
05:06financial interests. And this is a departure with what's always traditionally been the case,
05:11right, which is that presidents are not supposed to have active financial interests. And I'm afraid
05:17to say we'll never know. I mean, it's almost impossible to get to the bottom of what exactly those
05:22interests are, we just know that they exist. One example that is pretty well documented at the same
05:27time as not being very well documented is this meme coin scam, and these various sort of coins that
05:33pop up, people try and buy them, they're pulled out, you know, it's all very shady. So yes, I would say
05:39that the President of the United States probably does have some sort of personal active financial
05:44interest, which is a departure from the norm. But someone like me from the outside, I have no
05:48information, I don't really know what those interests are. Right. Now, if we talk about, you know,
05:56some allegations by some Trump loyalists, Peter Navarro, to be precise, he used inflammatory language
06:06referencing this war in Ukraine as Modi's war and making derogatory comments. How significantly might
06:15such rhetoric damage this bilateral relationship? Well, look, I don't know why anyone would take
06:22anything that Navarro says seriously. This is the guy that is alleged to have made up quotes in a book
06:28that he wrote, quotes from himself. So again, Navarro is one of these characters that I think is
06:33probably a little bit off piste intellectually, as well as in terms of the administration's policy.
06:39That said, he has a position of influence, we're talking about him right now. And probably that's,
06:44that is something that the Indians will note, by the way, in defense of Modi, this is not Modi's war,
06:50this is Putin's war, Putin's war. So it's very strange to me that the United States has an official
06:56who is making remarks like that. And let's bring it back to the start of our conversation. If I can,
07:01the United States has every interest in making friends, deeper friends with India right now,
07:08if I was running US trade policy, which obviously I'm not. But if I was running US trade policy,
07:13I would have India tariffs at 00%, not 50. So Navarro, honestly, not someone that I take seriously.
07:24Foreign policy experts have warned that pressuring,
07:27pressurizing India to abandon Russia could drive it deeper into the Moscow sphere of influence.
07:34Historically, this relationship has been that strong. Are we witnessing this prediction materialized
07:40through India's increased BRICS engagement alongside with Brazil who've also been slapped by heavy tariffs?
07:46Well, there is no Moscow sphere of influence. And that's Putin's entire problem, right? He's trying to rebuild
07:53the old Soviet empire. So there is no Moscow sphere of influence. There is a Chinese sphere of influence,
07:59which Russia is a part of right now. Now, if you're asking whether India under Modi is willingly becoming
08:07a part of of that sphere of influence, which is effectively the Chinese sphere of influence. No, let's just go back and
08:13remember our Indian history to some degree. India is an independently minded sovereign with its own
08:19civilization. It makes its own choices. It of course, basically led a non aligned movement during the Cold
08:25War. So there's no way that India is going to permanently put its feet one side or other of a line.
08:31And especially not when it looks at what's happened to Russia, which is essentially a form of economic
08:36conquest by China. So I my personal interpretation is that Modi's being pretty smart. He is reminding
08:43the Americans, he's reminding people like me that he has options, but he's not fully embraced China and
08:48Russia and is not attending the military parade, for example. Well, my last question is what concrete
08:57diplomatic and economic steps would actually reverse this current downward trajectory before the United
09:04States potentially loses what many analysts consider as the most crucial 21st century partnership.
09:12I consider the most crucial 21st century partnership, the partnership between India
09:17and the United States will effectively decide what happens between China and Russia. I've put this a
09:22different way before, which is to say that India has the deciding vote in the 21st century. If India
09:27chooses the US versus China, or if India sits out of any US China competition, it will effectively decide
09:34the outcome. So India is a super, super important player in the 21st century, it's only going to get
09:39more powerful. And like I say, I can't for the life of me understand why the President of the United
09:45States in a confrontation with China, in a war, if you think about it with Russia, would deign to put
09:5250% tariffs on India. So I think the number one thing that we could do of two is remove that 50%
09:58tariff and get it down to something far more reasonable, I suggest 0%. And the second thing we can do is apologize.
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