India’s Modi faces opposition slam after Trump slaps 25% tariff

NEW DELHI — India’s main opposition party is up in arms against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government after his “friend” U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on the country’s goods along with an unspecified penalty for its oil and other purchases from Russia.

Trump’s action “will harm the country’s trade; MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprises] and farmers will also be adversely affected. Many industries will suffer heavy losses,” Indian National Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge posted on X on Thursday. Modi’s ministers “have been talking about negotiating a trade deal with America for months. Some of them camped in Washington for several days. This is how your friend [Trump] rewarded our country for your friendship?”

India has been holding talks on a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. following Modi’s February visit to Washington during which the two sides announced plans to take bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030, from around $200 billion currently. New Delhi hoped to reach an interim deal with Washington before Aug. 1 — the extended deadline for the imposition of reciprocal tariffs — but segments like agriculture and dairy remained sticking points. India is not willing to fully open these sectors for fear of harming its farmers’ interests.

As per the new executive order issued by Trump late Thursday, a blanket 25% tariff on all Indian-origin goods would come into effect on Aug. 7. Pointing out that the latest Trump order mentions that tariffs may be reduced once countries do a deal with the U.S., Ajay Srivastava, founder of the New Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative, said on Friday that this “is more than just a tariff measure — it’s a pressure tactic.”

“Countries like China have retained exemptions on critical goods like pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and energy. But India has been singled out for harsher treatment, with no product-level exemptions whatsoever,” Srivastava said in a note he shared with Nikkei Asia. “The message is clear: agree to U.S. geopolitical views, sign a deal or suffer blanket tariffs — and India is being made the example for others.”

Quick estimates, he added, suggest that India’s goods exports to the U.S. in the current fiscal year ending in March 2026 may come down by 30% — from $86.5 billion in the last financial year — to $60.6 billion. “Most affected categories will be petroleum products, pharmaceuticals and electronics … each of these have high import content and low domestic value add.”

In a statement in parliament on Thursday, Modi’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said the implications of the new tariff announcement by Trump are being examined by the government. His ministry “is engaged with all stakeholders, including exporters and industry, for taking feedback of their assessment of the situation,” he said.

In the affected sectors, farmers are a key vote bank for Indian politicians as more than 40% of the country’s workforce depends on the agriculture sector.

“Agriculture is a very sensitive issue in India and opening the farm and dairy sector carries political risks for any government,” Raj Kumar Sharma, a visiting fellow at the Department of Diplomacy and India Studies Center in Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, told Nikkei.

“Trump is playing to his MAGA [Make America Great Again] base and is also targeting the BRICS countries, including India specifically, with higher tariffs… but [India] will not agree to any kind of deal that cannot be justified by the government to the Indian public.”

According to Prerna Gandhi, an associate fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank, American “pressure” on India for allowing its genetically modified farm produce into the Indian market is almost two decades old — and New Delhi remains reluctant. “Plus, dairy [products from meat-fed animals] are not going to be agreeable to the sensitivities of the Indian population,” a large number of which is vegetarian, she told Nikkei.

“Even in the first Trump administration, [a] limited trade deal got stuck on similar issues.”

After announcing the new tariff against India on Wednesday, Trump on Thursday again slammed India and Russia for their trade ties. “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care,” he posted on Truth Social. “We have done very little business with India, their Tariffs are too high, among the highest in the World. Likewise, Russia and the USA do almost no business together. Let’s keep it that way.”

India continued to buy discounted Russian oil despite the U.S. and other Western nations wanting it to maintain a distance from Moscow — a longtime ally of New Delhi — after Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022. Some unease in India-U.S. ties was also seen after Trump repeatedly claimed credit for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan following a brief period of fighting between the neighbors in May this year. Trump claimed he used trade threats to bring about peace between the two countries even though New Delhi insisted that the ceasefire was reached bilaterally.

When asked by reporters about the Trump statement on the Indian economy, Rahul Gandhi, another senior leader of the Indian National Congress, endorsed the U.S. president’s remarks and used them to attack the Modi government. “Yes, he [Trump] is right. I mean everybody knows this except the [Indian] prime minister and the finance minister. Everybody knows that the Indian economy is a dead economy. I am glad that President Trump has stated a fact.”

Asaduddin Owaisi, the chief of another opposition party All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, also slammed Trump and expressed sadness to see the Indian government “being bullied by a buffoon-in-chief” in the White House.

“These measures are a clear and deliberate attack on our sovereignty and economic standing,” he posted on X on Thursday. “While Japan will pay 15%, Vietnam will pay 20% and Indonesia has a tariff of 19%. This will hit India’s competitive advantage for U.S. exports.”

The article appeared in asia.nikkei