While the noise about the tariffs has risen to a crescendo, understandably now that the 50 per cent tariffs have hit, we must remember that there were rumblings in his first term as well about imposing tariffs on countries President Donald Trump thought were ‘ripping off’ the United States (US). So our government knew something was on and was preparing since then. We accelerated negotiations with a number of countries, resulting in significant Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). This shows that though they had not reached the decibel level as they have now, Trump’s early tariff announcements were signals that the government responded to, and a strategy was already being formed then.

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Understandably, there is anger about why India is being singled out for buying oil from Russia. Well, we can put it this way: Trump has ‘issues’ with certain countries. Simply put: this is geopolitics. While outwardly, this seems like piling pressure on India to stop buying oil, I am quite certain that there are some kinds of back-channel negotiations. These talks may be about other pressure being put on India, one which we do not know about. Otherwise it is difficult to see why India has been targeted specifically. The European Union and the US buy Russian goods.