Golden opportunity for India: CNN news host Fareed Zakaria on Trump pledge to hike tariff on imports from China

He was in conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express Group, and Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor of The Indian Express.

On being asked how Trump’s talk about 10 per cent tariffs for all US imports will play out in India and with the India-US relationship going forward, Zakaria said, “There is a golden opportunity here for India. Trump has set 10 per cent tariffs across the board, 60 per cent on China. My guess is the part he really means is, you know, don’t worry about the numbers, that China will be particularly hit hard by tariffs, but everybody else will face them.”

“If you know Trump, you have to assume that this is a bargaining position,” he said. “This is a kind of opening salvo. And so what India could do is try to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with Trump. And it’s a golden opportunity because you can create a much greater sense of regularity, you can create a corridor for US-India trade, and if India has to, as a result, reduce some of its tariffs, this is very good for the Indian economy.”

Calling India “the most protectionist large economy in the world”, Zakaria said, “Most of the protectionism India has in place is entirely because large Indian companies, conglomerates and industries, do not want competition.” If the Trump threat forces India to open up some of its markets, and in return, it gets some greater access to US technology, that could be a very important win for India, he said.

“I think the age of multilateral trade is over. What you are going to have is these bilateral trade deals, and India could be positioned to do a good one,” he said. “And if India is competing for the US market against a China that has 60 per cent tariffs, it’s going to be in a better position.”

On being asked about India’s multi-aligned foreign policy, where it has the ability to align itself or do business with whomever it wants without incurring the kind of punishments (sanctions) that would usually come with that, Zakaria said this is a mistake and that India will gain more by not playing footsie to everyone and should, in fact, align itself with the forces of democracy and liberalism.

“The Americans have been very understanding of India’s foreign policy. From a strategic, political and moral point of view, India will gain much more for itself by aligning itself firmly with the forces of democracy, liberalism and openness, because the only way India is going to grow economically is if it has a very close relationship with the most advanced centres of economics and technology in the world, and those are in the West, and it has a natural affinity and a connection to them,” he said.

India, he said, has a long way to go, considering it has $2,700 per capita GDP, compared to the United States, which is at $65,000. “India has none of the kind of technology companies that China has, let alone the US. India needs to move up the technology and education frontier, and find a way to collaborate in the new global supply chains. All of that is much more likely to happen with the West. You think the Chinese are going to let the Indians integrate into a Chinese global supply chain? It’s never going to happen.”

“The Russians don’t have a high-tech global supply chain. So from a completely self-interested point of view, India should stop playing footsie with everyone, and instead say proudly and loudly, we are a democracy, we are part of an open world, we want a world of openness, stability. We believe in the values and norms that define this world, and it will gain economically and politically,” he said.

However, even as he conceded that China may be the strategic glue for the Indo-US relationship, he said that there is also a value-based glue, and that India and America share deep values.

“India is the most pro-American country in the world. If you look at opinion polls, 75 per cent of Indians have a favourable impression of America. That’s higher now than even Israel and Poland, which were the other two. Every Indian is trying to get a visa to go to an American college; there’s nobody lining up to go to Beijing and Moscow,” he said.

He said Trump has always had “a favourable attitude towards India… a favourable attitude towards the BJP and towards Modi. So they are in a good position at multiple levels, he will press them on trade”.

New York-based Zakaria, who has previously been a guest at Express e.Adda in January 2021, is the author of Age of Revolutions (2024), Ten Lessons For a Post-Pandemic World (2020), The Post-American World (2008) and The Future of Freedom (2007) among other books that blend academic rigour and journalistic immediacy.

Since its debut in 2008, his weekly show Fareed Zakaria GPS has featured interviews with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron.

On being asked about the most important question he would put to Prime Minister Narendra Modi if he got him as a guest on his show, Zakaria said, it would be: “What is the best way to strengthen and let flourish India’s deeply pluralistic nature, the fact that it is a country composed of so many castes, tribes, religions, ethnicities, languages? Is he following policies that really allow that pluralism to flourish?”