US President Donald Trump never tires of calling India the “tariff king”, a country that taxes US goods heavily, sells far more to the US than it buys, and gives little back in return. His grievances — and the tariff drama these keep feeding — have revived an old question in our own commentary: What does India really get from its relationship with the world, and what does the world, particularly the US, get from us? Much of that stays trapped in the language of trade, tariffs, and surplus.

To get the full picture, we must widen the analytical lens. Let’s first take a look at the numbers. India received around $135 billion in remittances in FY25, more than any country has ever received. But this number hides more than it reveals.

To put the India-US economic exchange in perspective, let us consider the Gulf region because it is a clear contrast to the American case. Close to nine million Indians work in the six Gulf States, remitting $51 billion a year — roughly 38% of the total we receive. What makes this arrangement uncomplicated is this: Money comes in from the Gulf, and little of that goes back, barring what Indian tourists now spend in Dubai. The Gulf offers no citizenship, no permanence, no path to settle, and the workers are expected to leave in the end, and they do. Not that this arrangement is problem-free: This is mostly blue-collar work in construction and........

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