Shashi Tharoor On Trump Tariffs: ‘After 200 Years Of Colonialism, India Won’t Be Dictated To’ (Transcript)

And that in turn, again, was a setback. But I think in the meantime two things have happened. The SCO was an opportunity to attempt to continue with the thaw that had begun last year. And I think the government saw it as such. And Mr. Modi might well have chosen to go anyway and accept that invitation.

But then Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which have been absolutely stinging on India, we are the most tariffed nation in the world alongside Brazil. 50% is what Indian exporters are being charged for their goods. And as a result, companies are having orders canceled, factories are laying off workers. We’re having quite a serious impact in India at that point.

The imperative need to shore up relationships with other countries, other investors, other markets became much more urgent. So I think you’ve got a complicated message and, you know, one is seeing in this a sort of pivot from confrontation to conversation between India and China.

As for Russia, Mr. Putin was also there. That’s a long standing relationship. It’s had minor ups and downs, but I think by and large it has been a steady relationship. The main difference in recent years has been that India has gotten closer to America and Russia has become more dependent on China, particularly after the Ukraine war. And that was likely to have created a bit of estrangement slightly between India and Russia.

But now in the revised circumstances, I think there’s no talk with stranger and there’s only warmth and friendship. Mr. Modi has been to Moscow last year. Mr. Putin is coming to New Delhi later this year. And I think we’re looking at a change. So India is clearly shoring up its relationships with old friends and would be new friends in Russia and China respectively, particularly as a bulwark against all the uncertainties that the Trump tempest has unleashed on India in recent weeks.

Drawing Closer to China and Russia

TOM BURGES WATSON: Okay, well, let’s talk a bit more about that Trump tempest and these new friends. So President Xi and President Putin have been holding talks on the sidelines of that conference in China with your Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And there are these concerns in Washington that this trade standoff is having the effect of drawing India closer to those two countries. And it sounds like you believe that is in fact partially the case.

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: I think it’s partially. I don’t think either country would actually situate it in that context. But for anyone looking at it, it’s inescapable, the context, given the fact that the thaw that, as I mentioned, began late last year had already slowed down because of the stepping back as a result of the conflict with Pakistan and which China offered real time military assistance to Pakistan as well as diplomatic support in the Security Council and elsewhere.

Given all of that, things were not exactly thawing the way they might have. And had Mr. Trump not done what he’d done, there would certainly have been a slightly more formal, slightly more distant approach. But I think right now India understands, number one, that it needs China as it needs many other countries. And China understands that this is not a bad time to be talking to India because India is approaching it from a position of weakness from, as we say in cricket, from being on the back foot. And I think that’s something which gives each side an incentive to do some serious talking.

TOM BURGES WATSON: I think there will be some more cricketing analogies as the conversation goes on, because you’ve written a piece that is riddled with cricketing analogies and metaphors. But we’re going to come back. We’re going to come to that in just a moment. But I just wonder what I mean.

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Just to add to what we were saying, Tom, Indian pilgrims have started returning to Hindu and Buddhist sites in Tibet. Direct flights are resuming. They’ve been announced already. Therefore, visa restrictions are also easing. And both nations are orchestrating a flurry of high level exchanges to formalize this thaw.

So I think that there’s clearly a shared intent to move beyond the recriminations of the past and to reimagine the relationship. So though the fault lines have been more apparent than the possible areas of convergence, India and China are certainly both making steps towards each other.

The Dark Fleet Controversy

TOM BURGES WATSON: Ok, let’s talk about the underlying causes of this spat with the United States. The Trump administration accuses Russia of selling oil to countries like India and China as well, using these dark fleets. And that money is funding Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. I want to ask you, is that happening? And is in your opinion, Washington justifiably irritated that that’s happening?

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Well, absolutely, it is happening. The 50% tariffs kicked in on the 27th, just after midnight or the 26th night of August in American times. So we’ve actually been under those sanctions for five or six days already. But I do want to say that it’s completely unjustified for multiple reasons.

Number one is of course, that who you trade with is a sovereign decision. No one in America would allow anybody to presume to tell them whom they can and cannot trade with. And the only constraint that India or any other sovereign nation has historically been willing to observe is if the UN Security Council sanctions a particular country, then it’s where all as UN members expected to go along with that. But there is no UN Sanction on Russia.

Secondly, there is the fact that the EU is actually purchasing far more from Russia. In other words, they’re sending more dollars to Russia than India is. We spend about $53 billion on Russia, basically oil and gas. The EU spends 67 to 68 billion dollars every year. I’m talking last year’s figures on a whole variety of other items that they buy from Russia.

Thirdly, China buys far more oil and gas than we do. But America can’t dare to sanction China with an extra 25% because they know that the Chinese can withhold rare earth magnets and other vital materials and God knows what else that the American economy needs.

And so the problem with India is that India essentially is unable to conduct any reprisals against this punitive or vindictive action by America because the only way we can do so would be to hurt our own producers who are already hurting in terms of those items that the Americans have sanctioned.

There are a couple of items that we are selling the Americans that have not yet had a tariff slapped on them. One is pharmaceuticals. We are the world’s leading supplier of pharmaceuticals, even more than China. And so the average American going to his pharmacy for his headache remedy may have a bigger headache if the prices go up. And so they’ve been hesitating to sanction or tariff Indian pharmaceuticals so far anyway.

And the other one is the electronics we manufacture. 60% of the Apple iPhones sold in America. 60% of the Apple iPhone 17 was slated to be shipped from here. And that’s going to be something which I think would complicate relations not only with the American consumer, but also with this major American company. So they’re going to still work that out.

But those two things are still not everything else. All our leather goods, our textiles and garments, our seafood export shrimp and so on, and our gems and jewelry, where India was a world leader in terms of affordable gems and jewelry, diamond cutting and polishing, jewelry design, all of that, all of those have already taken a very bad hit from the initial 20%, 25%, and now the additional 25% sanctions. So that’s 50% already.

There’s stories of 150,000 Indian German jewelry workers being laid off in Mr. Modi’s home state of Gujarat. So it really does hurt. Real people are losing real jobs because of the temper tantrum from Washington.

Public Reaction and Growing Anger

TOM BURGES WATSON: Okay. I mean, you’ve described the sanctions as stinging sanctions. And you paint a picture there of a situation in which livelihoods are being severely affected by decisions being taken in Washington and by the Indian government. I mean, what does the Indian public make of all of this? Do you get the impression there’s growing anger? Is that a risk?

India’s Strategic Autonomy and Trade Relations

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Oh, yeah. No, there’s very serious anger because the Indian public, don’t forget after 200 years of colonialism, Tom, we are not prepared to be dictated to by any foreign power. It’s just, it is. Our strategic autonomy has been a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy under all governments. And we’ve had various parties in office at various times. No one has moved under, no one has buckled under, strategic dignity matters to us.

We are consistently championing a rules-based international order. Unilaterally imposing tariffs, especially telling you who you can and cannot buy oil or anything from flies in the face of our principles. We will not surrender our right to conduct our foreign policy based on our national interests. And so I think you will see from India, with massive popular support, strategic resolve and diplomatic firmness.

I mean we value our partnership with the U.S. but our foreign policy choices are non-negotiable and can be dictated solely by our national interests. I think we’ll continue negotiating with the Russia, with the Americans and trade negotiations if they’re willing to talk. They actually suspended the last round on 25 August where an American trade delegation was due in Delhi to continue trade talks and they decided not to come. See, they don’t want to talk. Then they can’t be a negotiation. But otherwise we will be happy to negotiate with them. But we won’t compromise on some issues that matter to us.

Agricultural Sector and Domestic Priorities

For example, in a democracy like India, anything that is seen as harming the interests of our 700 million farmers or 700 million people living off agriculture is simply a non-starter for any elected government. The farmers represent an extremely powerful voting bloc in the country and across the country. So we will not grant market access to much of our agricultural sectors. And the Americans better understand that if the price of that is they’re going to give us some unreasonable tariffs, well then they’ll simply end up losing our products is as simple as that.

There’s also been pressure on data localization. We’re not convinced we need to do that. So there’s some issues. I think there are other things we could have negotiated. Americans want to sell us Cadillacs, luxury automobiles. I suspect that we’re willing to give a little bit on that because it’s a very small market for that kind of car and India won’t be upsetting the entire Indian marketplace. I think we can be a little more accommodating of some of the American export interests. Maybe Indians who are notoriously fond of Scotch whiskey might develop a taste for bourbon if we can work out a deal with America on that. So that kind of negotiation is always possible.

But I must tell you that it’s got to be a negotiation. It can’t be a unilateral diktat.

Diversification Strategy and Economic Competitiveness

We know the US is a crucial market, but we are going to be redoubling our efforts to strengthen our trade ties with other significant economies. The EU, we are already negotiating an FTA with the EU. The UK, we’ve got an FTA concluded last month. Japan, ASEAN partners in the global south, including Africa. I think we are going to be diversifying a lot more to reduce our over-reliance on any single market and to build resilience against the unpredictable unilateral actions, that kind of thing coming again from Washington.

And we also have to do something about our domestic competitiveness and strengthening. I think we need to focus on improving our internal practices, our logistics, the cost of doing business, the ease of doing business, the productivity of our labor force. There are things we can do to get our act together a little better at home. We can’t just compete purely on low wages. We need to invest on skills and technology, on infrastructure. We’ve got to make our products globally competitive, even in the face of whatever tariffs we finally end up with, which I hope certainly will not be anything like 50, should ideally be around or lower than 20.

Then we will be able to compete with other Asian countries and other countries generally that are also being tariffed at between 15 and 19% these days by the Americans. That could be fine. And we can also do a strategic review of our own tariff structures to ensure that they’re actually serving our economic goals. Mr. Trump keeps complaining that our tariffs are too high. Our average tariffs in America are just 17%. So American tariffs are actually higher on Indian goods than Indian tariffs are on American goods. But we can still look at that. We can see where we can ease things, as I said, on a sector by sector, item by item basis.

India’s Resolve and Strategic Independence

My own gut feeling about all of this is these actions by President Trump are testing our resolve, testing our proud history of strategic independence. And we’re not going to capitulate. We will have to seriously consider how best we respond. And my gut feeling on all of this is we will be able to. But we’re not going to sacrifice our strategic autonomy even for short-term economic relief. That would be a betrayal of what every Indian would agree is our national interest. We’ll have to stand firm, we’ll have to negotiate hard. We’ll have to diversify strategically and we’ll have to emerge from all of the Trumpian tariffs as an even stronger and more self-reliant nation. That would be my message tomorrow.

TOM BURGES WATSON: I mean, it sounds, I don’t think Americans are very familiar with cricketing terminology. So saying they’re going to, that India is going to dig in for a long innings, which is what it looks like Prime Minister Modi is doing. It sounds like that’s what you’re advocating. I mean, just putting that in Mr. Trump’s more sort of familiar language, the language of baseball, sounds like you advocate.

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Playing hardball, hardball, but not going for home runs of the first shot. I think we have to recognize that stealing the occasional base is the best thing we can do if that metaphor works.

Trump’s Recent Statements and Potential Compromise

TOM BURGES WATSON: It sounds as though just reading what President Trump put out on social media last night on Truth Social, he said “India is making concessions. He says they have now offered to cut their tariffs to nothing. But it’s getting late. They should have done this years ago.” Do you read this as a softening of President Trump’s stance? And do you think perhaps those pictures, do you think those pictures in China rattled him?

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Yeah, I think it could well have done. And certainly says “it’s getting late.” That means there’s still room for compromise. If he says “it is too late,” that means he’s playing hardball. So that “getting late” is, I think, a fairly encouraging turn of phrase and it may suggest there’s some room for maneuver.

TOM BURGES WATSON: Okay. Are you hopeful that a negotiated solution is going to be found?

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: I’m sorry, could you repeat that tomorrow?

TOM BURGES WATSON: Are you hopeful that a negotiated solution is going to be found?

Two-Part Tariff Structure and Negotiation Possibilities

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Well, look, there are two parts to this particular problem. There is, first of all, the base 25% tariffs, which are higher than most of our competitors for similar labor-intensive items. So you can’t compete with Thailand on gems and jewelry, with Vietnam or Bangladesh on garments, with many Southeast Asian countries on seafood exports at 25. If those countries are only being paying tariffs at between 15 and 19, because that gives you a 6% premium, that makes it very difficult for Indian exporters to attract their American buyers.

Then there’s a second 25%, which is the sanctions on India for purchasing Russian oil. I think that second 25% can be waved off by Mr. Trump with a wave of the wand, saying “we made our point and we will take it off.” Because he’s now focused in his yesterday’s post on Truth Social, only on the basic tariffs, which is the first 25. And there, if we can negotiate down, if we can, we haven’t reduced everything to zero. I know, but if we can reduce some to zero and some to lower numbers and come to a compromise in America, maybe we can end up also at a lower number than 25. Maybe we can come to 15, 16, 17. Anything up to 19, I think would still enable us to compete with other Asian countries who are exporting the same kinds of goods to America.

But the sanction 25 is a political policy. He sanctioned us. He hasn’t sanctioned China, he hasn’t sanctioned the EU. He’s got to decide whether the relationship with India is so unimportant to him that sanctioning India by that extra 25 is worth it. If he decides, on second thoughts, he doesn’t want to throw India aside and he wants to preserve the relationship, then I think he can certainly knock the second 25 off, and then the trade negotiators can work out a deal on the first 25. That’s the way I see a possible outcome. And it’ll all have to happen in the next few weeks because it’s already hurting. As I said, people are being laid off right now as we speak.

India-Pakistan Relations and Trump’s Role

TOM BURGES WATSON: Okay, we’re coming to the end. I just want to ask you, because last time we spoke, it was obviously at the height of the tensions between India and Pakistan. And President Trump has said since then on multiple occasions that he played an instrumental role in helping to defuse that situation and avert, he said, nuclear war. I want to ask how important you think that role was played by the US President and his administration, and what is the state of affairs now with India and Pakistan? How do we avoid a repeat of those sorts of tensions?

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Well, on the first one, Thomas, as I mentioned to you, when we spoke during the conflict, India never needed persuading. India’s message was consistent throughout. We’re just conducting reprisals against terrorists that as far as we’re concerned, if Pakistan hits us, we’ll have to head back. If Pakistan stops, we’ll stop. And from the Indian point of view, the moment the Pakistani Director General of Military Operations called his Indian counterpart and said, “look, we want to call this off,” India immediately said, “we’ll call it off.”

So India never needed persuading. But it’s entirely possible that President Trump or people speaking on his behalf persuaded Pakistan that Pakistan was being belligerent. And the Americans said, “we don’t want this getting out of hand. Cool it.” And the Pakistanis yielded to Mr. Trump’s entreaties, in which case, of course, we are grateful. Everyone wants peace on the subcontinent, India most of all. So I don’t think that we would have any difficulty in crediting Mr. Trump for whatever he may have said to Pakistan. But we just wanted to make it very clear he didn’t say anything to us.

No Mediation, Only Direct Dialogue

In fact, he didn’t call Mr. Trump between his first condolence call after the terrorist attack by the Pakistani terrorists and his subsequent call to Mr. Modi after they missed each other at the G7 summit in Ottawa. When Mr. Trump cut short his trip and had to miss his meeting, scheduled meeting with Mr. Modi between those two calls, there was no call between President Trump and Mr. Modi. And that’s what’s important for all of us to make clear we are not a country that accepts the notion of mediation.

Mediation implies equivalence. And we believe there can be no equivalence between terrorists and their victims. There can be no equivalence between a country that incubates terrorism and a country that is on the receiving end of these criminal actions. There can be no equivalent between us between a revisionist power that wants to upset the entire geopolitics of the subcontinent, change borders and so on, and a country like India that’s a status quo power that wants to get on with its development, get on with its economic growth and focus on the well-being of its own people.

There is no equivalence and there’s no equivalence. There can be no mediation. So we made it very clear that we don’t welcome American or anybody else’s mediation, but we certainly welcome, and we have great respect for the American presidency. If Mr. President or his officials spoke to the Pakistanis and got them to climb down so that we’re now at peace on the border, that’s a good thing for everybody and we are at peace.

You asked how things are with Pakistan. There had been no particular new tensions, no new incidents, no new violence, no new shelling, nothing of that sort. So at the moment, the peace that came about at the end of Operation Sindur is holding, and that’s the best we can say. But I don’t know what Mr. Trump said to Washington, to Islamabad, and if he’s certainly seeking credit for that, he probably deserves it. But as far as India is concerned, he didn’t play any role in persuading us, nor did we need any role of persuasion.

Prime Ministerial Ambitions

TOM BURGES WATSON: Okay, this is my last question to you, Dr. Tharoor. You’ve been very generous with your time. You’ve got a huge social media following. Our last interview together delivered an enormous view count. And a lot of your supporters, when I look in the comments section, are asking the same question. Does Dr. Tharoor have prime ministerial ambitions? What’s the answer?

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Oh, my word. The answer is there is no vacancy. And look, I mean, in a parliamentary system, no one can aspire to any specific job. You aspire to do your best for the constituency that elected you, which in my case is Tiruvananthapuram, which you pronounced so ably when you interviewed me last. And that’s where I’m focused. But I have had a long association with world affairs and international questions. I care passionately about them and I chair the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. So I focus on these topics as part of my parliamentary duties, not because of any prime ministerial ambitions. But thank you for asking.

TOM BURGES WATSON: But you wouldn’t turn it down.

Concluding Remarks

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Oh, come on. Don’t ask questions that I don’t particularly think is wise to answer. But as I said, let us do vacancy. We’ll have to talk about real situations and not hypothetical ones, as we’ve been doing in this conversation. All right.

TOM BURGES WATSON: Well, we look forward to continuing the conversation and we really appreciate your time today, Dr. Shashi Tharoor. Thank you very much indeed, sir.

DR. SHASHI THAROOR: Thank you, Tom. All the best.

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