On February 13, 2025, at the beginning of the Trump Presidency, the American President met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in a historically very positive visit that laid the foundation for a particularly warm bilateral relationship.
However, it took only six months for President Trump to put on another communication show, one of those that have rightfully established him as the greatest showman in politics.
The Trump administration has just announced the imposition of a 25% tariff on Indian products and something else, the imposition of “a penalty” on India, as punishment for its imports of Russian energy!
President Trump tried to justify this “punishment” as necessary because “this fact hinders his efforts for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war.”
Of course, the reality is that Trump is using Ukraine as a smokescreen that he hopes will hide US weakness, a weakness that is due to the trade deficit with India of $45.8 billion for 2024 alone, according to US Census Bureau data!
Trump’s decision on tariffs, which will take effect on August 1, 2025, targets India’s trade practices and its purchase of Russian oil worth $13.2 billion in 2024 (International Energy Agency), challenging India’s strategic autonomy and its refusal to join Western sanctions against Russia, a stance that runs counter to mainstream American expectations of alignment with allies.
Economic analyses, including a 2023 study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, suggest that such tariffs could increase US consumer prices by 0.2-0.4% per year, while India’s response—which is weighing the implications and certainly wants to protect its farmers—clearly hints at retaliation, thus setting in motion a broader trade war amid global market volatility.
Trump is trying to present a strong America that “punishes” any country that does not comply with US choices, but in reality he is throwing America’s last card on the table to avoid bankruptcy: tariffs on foreign goods, behind which lies a desperate attempt to stimulate domestic production and reduce international trade deficits.
These practices increasingly demonstrate the true motivation of the US and the degradation to which it has fallen in our days. So far from the supposedly strong America, which exports justice and freedom, through its commitment to values such as self-determination and respect. This image has now been replaced by an aging and deformed TV presenter who threatens and punishes people for not working for her own interests. Decay.
But these actions that Trump hopes will project strength, project only desperation and smell of defeat. And no one sides with the neighborhood bully when they are about to be defeated.
Unfortunately for the US, this policy only misleads anyone who does not think. The rest now realize that the US’s titanic debt of $33 trillion, which is increasing by about $100,000 every minute, can only have the same fate as the Titanic.
