Never waste a good crisis. I am not entirely sure who said it (no, it wasn’t Winston Churchill), but this has to be most sagacious advice ever. And it looks like the time has come for India to heed it.

There has been much outrage in India over US President Donald Trump’s sudden and unilateral imposition of 25% tariff on Indian exports (plus an unspecified Russia friendship tax). Most of the outrage is due to a sense of betrayal. After all, India was meant to be an important ally in America’s China containment strategy. Equally populous country, largest democracy, etc.

As a result, an entire nation is busy scratching its head to figure out just how much damage will this move inflict on India’s growth. We’ll come to that in a bit. Meanwhile, let’s consider an interesting question that a clever colleague of mine asked: If President Trump’s issue is with India’s trade surplus, why not just agree to buy more goods from the US to offset the surplus?

I am sure this would appeal to President Trump. He would certainly like to sell more energy, more defence equipment and produce to India. But for India, it would be a poor........

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