US president Donald Trump can’t seem to get India out of his mind. He slapped on an additional 25 percent tariff on India on Wednesday, effectively doubling tariffs to 50 percent on most imports from India.
The ostensible reason: India’s intransigence over its oil purchases from Russia. India doesn’t “care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine", Trump had said on his micro-blogging platform, Truth Social, on Monday.
India has said its Russian oil imports are in its national interests. “We have already made clear our position on these issues, including the fact that our imports are based on market factors and done with the overall objective of ensuring the energy security of 1.4 billion people of India," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
While much of this is optics amidst inconclusive, months-long trade negotiations between the largest and the fifth-largest economies of the world, the latest Trump tirade merits a look at his recent India obsession.
Let that sink in: India will soon about add to its heft a Norway- or Singapore-sized GDP every year. Repeat: Every year. Which leader in the modern world will not want a share of that single largest growth market?
Drill down some more: Which are the sectors that will move the needle for the Indian economy and have the US and Trump eager to get a bigger pie of it?
Guess who are the top suppliers currently? Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the UAE. The US comes a distant fifth in that list, rubbing shoulders with Nigeria.
Despite his apparent disbelief in global warming, Trump will not want to miss out on the renewable energy market in India, ranging from solar cells to wind energy as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government doubles down on seizing the country’s natural advantage: A geographical spread that has good sunlight for around 300 days a year which, despite the haze over the country, thanks to its coal-fired plants, can be a game changer as solar-tech improves efficiency in leaps and bounds.
Russia, a traditional arms supplier to India, has given up a large share to France in recent years but the US has not been able to make substantial inroads other than transporter aircraft and drone deals. That is something the likes of Lockheed Martin, RTX Corp, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, among others, will want to see changing in the next few decades as India’s relationships with both Pakistan and China get tested.
The game is not just in volumes driven by a large population. There’s a subtle shift towards branded products and organised retail fuelled by a dual-income young demographic, rising financial inclusion and rapid urbanisation. More Indians live in well-serviced cities today than all of the European Union population. Urban Indians will count some 675 million by 2035, projects the United Nations.
Those families aspire to buy Apple’s iPhones in marked-down sales and ACs (a necessity in a tropical market that has brands like Carrier Global charged against Korean rivals) and want to wear Nike shoes on a date at the neighbourhood McDonald’s or Taco Bell—music to Trump’s and US Inc’s ears.
With stronger trade ties, there are the Indian inputs into American efficiency. Information technology and AI-support services, electronic manufacturing as the US moves out of its China orbit, and better integration with India’s pharma prowess to lower the cost of health care delivery in the US are examples that could help Trump end his second term as a president who meant business.
(Josey Puliyenthuruthel is a business writer and editor based in Bengaluru.)
First Published: Aug 07, 2025, 11:59
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