NEW DELHI, Aug 9: With the US President Donald Trump’s tariff war with India coming under criticism from various sectors, his former aide John Bolton has said Mr Trump has jeopardised decades of American efforts to bring India away from Russia and China, while the American Economist and John Hopkins University Professor Steve Hanke felt the US president was “destroying himself” by launching a trade war against the rest of the world including India.
Pointing to the hefty tariffs that the US has imposed on India for buying Russian oil, Mr Bolton, the former National Security Advisor also called out Trump’s bias towards China over India and said it could be an “enormous mistake.” Trump engaged in a brief trade war with China in April but has since held back any further escalation – pending a deal, while he has hit India with over 50% tariff, including a 25% secondary tariff for what he said was funding the Russian war machine in Ukraine.
The tariffs have led to the “worst outcome” for the US, as India reacted “very negatively” to what was expected, partly because it saw that China was not being tariffed, Bolton said. He called it ironic that the secondary tariff, which was intended to hurt Russia, could push India closer to Russia and China, and perhaps make them negotiate together against the US. “Trump’s leniency on the Chinese and heavy-handed tariffs on India jeopardize decades of American efforts to bring India away from Russia and China,” the former aide of the President asserted.
US foreign policy expert Christopher Padilla, a former US trade official, has also warned that the tariffs could pose a risk of long-term damage to India-US ties. It could raise questions later whether the US was a reliable partner, as the tariffs would remain in memory, he feared.
Flagging the biased tariffs in an Op-Ed for The Hill, Bolton had earlier said Trump’s leniency towards Beijing could be seen as sacrificing the US’s strategic interests in this “zeal for a deal” with President Xi Jinping. “The White House seems headed toward more lenient treatment for Beijing on tariff rates and other metrics than it imposed on New Delhi. If so, it will be a potentially enormous mistake.”
Trump’s additional tariff has failed to convince India to stop buying oil from India, thus far. Rather, it has defended its oil imports and called the tariffs “unfair and unreasonable.” Moscow has backed New Delhi and accused the US of exerting illegal trade pressure on India – a week before Trump would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting would give Putin an opportunity to advance his agenda on a number of fronts, and he may even play a larger game over the India tariffs, Bolton said.
Mr Hanke said the tariff decision of Mr Trump was “absolutely rubbish” and merely “resting on sand.” “The economics is just all wrong,” he added. “The main thing is to follow Napoleon’s advice – he said never interfere with an enemy in the process of destroying oneself. I think Trump is destroying himself,” Professor Hanke said.
“I think in the case of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar should keep their cards close to the chest and wait for a little while. The reason I say that is I think Trump’s house of cards will collapse. The economic tremors for tariffs are resting on sand,” he added.
Professor Hanke claimed there was a huge trade deficit in the US since the spending by the Americans is more than the gross national product. “So the economics is just all wrong. Trump’s tariff economics is absolutely rubbish,” he said.
Both Russia and China, among others, have slammed Mr Trump for exerting illegal trade pressure on India. “We hear many statements that are in fact threats, attempts to force countries to cut trade relations with Russia. We do not consider such statements to be legal,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had said before the US imposed the 50 percent penalty on India.
Chinese Ambassador to India, Xu Feihong took a jab at Mr Trump, saying: “Give the bully an inch, he will take a mile. Using tariffs as a weapon to suppress other countries violates the UN Charter, undermines WTO rules and is both unpopular and unsustainable.”
(Manas Dasgupta)