When Donald Trump revived tariffs as a centerpiece of American trade policy, he did not merely tax steel, solar panels or sorghum. He taxed predictability. And in a world where capital, supply chains and diplomacy all feed on certainty, unpredictability is itself a form of power.
For developing countries, the return of tariffs stirred an old memory. Protection once served as shield and scaffold — a way for fragile industries to grow without being crushed by the scale and capital of richer nations. East Asia deployed it with discipline. China fused it with joint ventures, technology transfer and export ambition. Protection was not nostalgia; it was strategy.
Globalization appeared to close that chapter. Average tariffs fell. Multilateral rules thickened. Efficiency and interdependence replaced insulation. But Trump’s gambit suggested that trade had reverted from technocratic management to geopolitical leverage. Tariffs were no longer merely economic instruments; they were negotiating chips, deployed abruptly to extract concessions and reorder relationships.
India found itself tested by this revival of economic statecraft. Critics argue that New Delhi moved too quickly in response — that it conceded ground on agriculture and policy autonomy under headline pressure, when patience might have yielded better terms. Compared with countries that appeared more willing to absorb friction, India’s posture seemed cautious. The charge is serious. It deserves engagement. But it also requires context.
The critique rests on several assumptions. The first is that tariffs remain indispensable for protecting infant industries. That logic held in an era when industrialization required sheltered domestic markets and capital scarcity made scale decisive. Yet much of today’s growth — in digital services, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing — is globally integrated from inception. Protection without competitiveness risks entrenching inefficiency. The real question is not whether tariffs exist, but whether they are paired with institutional discipline and technological upgrading.
The second assumption is that China’s path is replicable. China combined scale, centralized coordination and an unusually long strategic horizon. India, a vast federal democracy, operates differently. Authority is diffused. Politics is contested. Policy coherence emerges more gradually. To imagine that India could simply mirror China’s protectionist sequencing is to overlook structural differences.
The third assumption is that Trump’s tariffs were arbitrary and therefore temporary — likely to be softened by judicial or institutional checks. While the formulas sometimes appeared improvised, the logic was coherent within his worldview. Tariffs were leverage in a transactional diplomacy. They were designed to force bilateral negotiation, not to defend a multilateral ideal. In such a framework, waiting for legal reversal is not necessarily strategy; it may be misreading the tempo of the game.
And then there is geopolitics. Trade disputes do not exist in isolation. India’s relationship with the United States spans defense cooperation, intelligence sharing, technology partnerships and balancing China in the Indo-Pacific. A purely economic reading of concessions risks missing broader calculations. Securing strategic space in one domain can require accommodation in another.
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Still, the critics are right about one essential point: tariffs are not the battlefield. They are a symptom. If India’s response is confined to reactive bargaining over duties on pulses or feed grains, it risks playing checkers in a contest that demands chess.
The sharper question is not whether India conceded too much in a moment of pressure. It is whether it now converts that moment into long-term strategic advantage.
Start with agriculture, where concerns are most visceral. Concessions on commodities raise fears about farmer livelihoods and food sovereignty. The counter is not reflexive protectionism; it is repositioning.
India can elevate its traditional crops — especially millets — as climate-resilient, nutritious grains suited to a warming planet. It can strengthen farmer cooperatives to achieve export scale and bargaining power. It can align agricultural policy with climate diplomacy, framing sustainable grains as part of a global solution rather than a domestic vulnerability. That move changes the narrative. Instead of defending against imports, India shapes demand.
Next, negotiation itself. Strategic patience is not passivity. In trade diplomacy, time can be leverage. Unilateral measures often evolve under political and market pressure. By diversifying export markets across Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, India reduces dependence on any single partner’s goodwill. The more options it has, the less urgency it faces. Delay, judiciously applied, can strengthen bargaining power.
Technology presents a subtler challenge. China forced joint ventures to absorb know-how. India cannot replicate coercion without deterring investment. But it can require local research commitments, deepen university-industry collaboration and safeguard digital sovereignty through calibrated regulation. The objective is absorption without erosion — to become a sponge that soaks up knowledge while retaining shape.
Institutional credibility is the quiet counterweight to volatility. Investors unsettled by abrupt tariff announcements look for jurisdictions where contracts are enforced, taxes are predictable and logistics are efficient. If India streamlines customs, reduces regulatory opacity and strengthens dispute resolution, it becomes not merely an alternative but an anchor of stability. When unpredictability emanates from Washington, predictability in New Delhi becomes a strategic asset.
This is the deeper point often lost in the tariff debate. Contemporary economic competition is not confined to duties at the border. It encompasses subsidies, export controls, industrial policy, digital standards and financial leverage. Globalization has not vanished; it has fractured. Supply chains are re-regionalizing. National security considerations shape trade flows. The contest is structural, not episodic.
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In such an environment, mirroring volatility with volatility is self-defeating. A rising power does not respond to unpredictability by becoming unpredictable. It responds by becoming indispensable.
That indispensability is built slowly — through infrastructure, human capital, innovation ecosystems and credible governance. It is reinforced by diversified partnerships and multilateral engagement. Anchoring trade choices within forums such as the G20 or broader coalitions dilutes bilateral pressure and affirms commitment to rules.
India’s claim to leadership in the Global South also hangs in the balance. Dignity matters. So does discipline. Championing equitable trade rules and climate justice resonates only if domestic reform accompanies rhetoric. Credibility is cumulative.
The temptation in moments of tariff confrontation is to frame the issue as humiliation or triumph — concession or resistance. But great powers are not defined by any single negotiation. They are defined by what they build in its aftermath.
If India uses this episode to strengthen agricultural resilience, deepen technological capability, diversify markets and reinforce institutional reliability, the initial optics of concession will matter less than the long-term trajectory of capability. The relevant metric is not how loudly it resisted, but how effectively it evolved.
Tariffs may rise and fall with political cycles. Administrations will change. But structural competitiveness endures. The discipline of power lies not in theatrical retaliation, but in patient accumulation of strength.
The question, then, is not whether India should have waited longer or spoken louder. It is whether it now chooses to translate volatility into reform and pressure into progress. Nations are not judged by the tariffs imposed upon them, but by the capacities they cultivate in response.
In an era where unpredictability is wielded as leverage, the most incisive counter may be steadiness. The surest answer to arbitrary power is strategic coherence.