Roving Periscope: Ahead of April 2 tariff threat, Trump tries to ‘soften’ PM Modi!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Businessman-turned-US President Donald Trump knows how to keep a customer in the tent. After repeatedly criticising what he believes are the high tariffs India and other countries charge on American goods, he appeared to soften on New Delhi, ahead of his April 2 ‘deadline’ of launching fresh ‘reciprocal tariffs.’
After his second term began on January 20, he has been using known business tactics in politics—he may not have any other ‘ideology!’. For, he has blown hot and cold, and clamped a punitive 25 percent tariff on Mexico, Canada, and China, postponing them when required, and arm-twisting diplomatic negotiations.
Also, he sent his boys to hot spots for ‘due diligence’—Vice-President JD Vance to Greenland, Lt. Gen. Joel P. Vowell, Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army Pacific, to Bangladesh, among others—to soften them for negotiations.
India, poised to become the world’s third largest economy, is, however, different. He met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington, held bilateral talks, on February 13 in a ‘cordial atmosphere, but followed it up with relentless tariff threats.
Now, ahead of April 2, Trump described PM Modi as a “very smart man” and a “great friend of mine” while emphasising that tariff talks would “work out very well between India and our country,” the media reported on Saturday.
His remarks assume significance since the US President has repeatedly criticised the high tariffs charged by India and other countries on American goods.
“Prime Minister Modi was here just recently and we have always been very good friends,” he said in the White House on Friday.
“India is one of the highest tariffing nations in the world… it’s brutal, it’s brutal. They’re very smart. He (Modi) is a very smart man and a great friend of mine. We had very good talks. I think it’s going to work out very well between India and our country,” Trump said.
“And I want to say you have a great prime minister,” he said.
On its part, India is trying to convince the US to reduce non-tariff barriers faced by its exporters in the American market in multiple sectors — from chemicals and plastics to shrimps and fruits — even as it readies to commit to tariff cuts for a number of US imports ahead of the reciprocal tariffs kicking off on Tuesday next week—unless he postpones them, again.
