The West dislikes India’s growth because it undermines their global power, especially as their own influence declines. However, a strong and self-assured India is anathema to them; they can’t force it to do their bidding. Donald Trump is understandably frustrated by India’s refusal to meet his unreasonable demands. He made the UK, Japan, the EU, South Korea, and others agree to terms favouring America, which involved promises of large investments by them, unlikely to materialize.

Because of India’s principled stand against unrestricted free trade with the US, regardless of our genuine concerns and sensitivities, he was extremely annoyed and even called India’s economy dead. India’s mature response was only to remind that there are some red lines the government would never compromise.

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For Trump, Indian grapes have indeed turned sour, but Indians need not unnecessarily lose sleep over his 25 per cent tariffs on our goods, despite our neighbours (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan) and competitors (Vietnam, South Korea) having the advantage of much lower tariffs. The IMF has recently revised India’s growth forecast from 6.2 to 6.4 per cent for the current year. The worst-case scenario is a 0.2 to 0.3 percentage point reduction in GDP growth from Trump’s tariffs. It is to be remembered that India’s growth is driven primarily by domestic consumption rather than exports, and with inflation remaining well within targets and the monsoon progressing well, that consumption can only expand.

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Domestic consumption accounted for 71.4 percent of our GDP in FY2024; exports comprised 21.2 per cent, and imports were 23.5 per cent, leading to a net GDP reduction of 2.3 per cent. Still, the export sector is significant ~ it provides employment for about 90 million individuals, including informal workers, and represents almost 12 per cent of overall employment. A majority are in labour intensive industries such as apparel (approximately 45 million), footwear, gems and jewellery, etc. During 2024-25, India exported goods valued at $438 billion against imports worth $721 billion, 17 per cent of which came from China alone.

Fifty one per cent of all exports went to nine countries, each with over $10 billion in imports. With $87 billion (20 per cent), the USA was number one; the UAE was a distant second, with $37 billion. The others were Netherlands, UK, China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Bangladesh. Another $111 billion of exports went to 19 more countries, each of which bought $5-10 billion in Indian products. Without the USA, these nations represented 56 per cent of........

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