Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on India start today.
Oil-Related Tariff Shock
Bloomberg reports Trump Slaps India With 50% Tariffs, Upending Ties With Modi
President Donald Trump imposed a crushing 50% tariff on Indian goods to punish the country for buying Russian oil, upending a decades-long push by Washington to forge closer ties with New Delhi.
The new tariffs, the highest in Asia, took effect at 12:01 a.m. in Washington on Wednesday, doubling the existing 25% duty on Indian exports. The levies will hit more than 55% of goods shipped to the US — India’s biggest market — and hurt labor-intensive industries like textiles and jewelry the most. Key exports like electronics and pharmaceuticals are exempt, sparing Apple Inc.’s massive new factory investments in India for now.
“This is going to be a very big impact on Indian exporters because 50% tariffs are not workable for the clients,” said Israr Ahmed, managing director of Farida Shoes Pvt. Ltd., which depends on the US for 60% of its business.
New Delhi has argued the purchases stabilize energy markets, and has said it will keep buying Russian oil “depending on the financial benefit.”
China, Russia Ties
The fraying relationship has pushed India to edge away from the US and forge deeper ties with fellow members of the BRICS bloc.
At the same time, India and Russia have pledged to increase their annual trade by 50% to $100 billion over the next five years. India has ramped up oil imports from Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, and now accounts for about 37% of Russia’s oil exports, according to Moscow-based Kasatkin Consulting.
Citigroup Inc. estimates that the combined 50% tariff poses a 0.6-0.8 percentage point downside risk to annual gross domestic product growth.
The economic impact may be cushioned by the fact that India’s economy is largely driven by domestic demand, rather than exports, so shoring up consumer and business sentiment is key to faster growth. Private consumption makes up about 60% of India’s GDP — and although the US is India’s biggest export market, with shipments of $87.4 billion in 2024, that still amounts to only 2% of India’s total GDP.
Trump Attacks the Weak
Notice how Trump attacks the weak. After repeatedly threatening Russia with severe consequences, Trump did nothing.
- March 7: Trump Threatens Russia With Strong Sanctions in Effort to Reach Peace Deal
- March 30: Trump Says He Is “Very Angry, Pissed Off” at Putin
- May 26: Trump Threatens Sanctions, Asks “What the Hell Happened to Putin?”
- July 14: Trump Threatens 100% Tariffs on Russia Over Ukraine, So What?
Severe Consequences? When?
We have severe consequences, on India. What about the oil and natural gas China buys from Russia?
Please recall my April 21 post China Halts US Liquid Natural Gas Imports, Turns to Russia Instead
What did Trump do besides nothing?
On April 12, I commented Trump Backs Down More on Tariffs Exempts Smartphones, Electronics from China
On May 12, I noted US and China Slash Tariffs for 90 Days with More Planned Talks
China responded to Trump’s tariffs by halting rare earth exports. That’s why Trump backed down.
Chalk up a Two-TACO Trump Day on His Call to Xi Over Rare Earth Elements
Meanwhile, in Canada
Please note Canada Adds 70 Percent More Port Capacity to China to Escape Trump’s Tariffs
Credit Trump for pushing Canada closer to China.
And today, please note that Trump is pushing India closer to Russia and China.
Best of all, US consumers and businesses have to pay more for goods.
Is Trump great or what?
In 1925 GB general Maud and his Indian troops conquered Bagdad. His predecessor
general Ironside and his Indian troops were captured after they were stuck in the mud. Modi isn’t a pawn of GB. India is more powerful than the UK, but Modi needs the US more than we need him.
Bibi might have decap Hooties military leaders.
Can I mambo dogface to the banana patch?
The second quad: India, Russia, China and Iran navies met once in 2025, before the US dismantled Iran, as well as with the first quad: The US, Japan, India and Australia. Modi competes with China as an industrial and military power. Modi, please make up your mind.
But pharma is exempt…..some of Trump’s older advisors are prob on blood thinners, LOL.
Prob on LSD and tea with crumpets, too!
First, it is virtually impossible to “punish” India. And, India gaining a closer relationship with China is a monumental reward for India. As for the poor Americans who will pay the tariffs, they’re victims of a crime. And a tear for the poor Americans who will pay higher energy prices if the Bumbler in Chief should somehow actually reduce Russian oil sales, which seems doubtful.
O/T (but not really):
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-82825-trump-scoffs-at-russian
“… how did we get from Trump’s casual table rants to plumbing historical myths? The underlying continuity can be explained simply: the West does not understand Russia, and does not care to understand it. This comes from an ingrained superiority complex and exceptionalism dating back centuries.”
“Thank” a Brit!
The Indian army is #2 behind China. India air force and navy leaves the UK in the back of the line. Even Turkey is stronger than the UK. India, Japan, S. Korea and the US are the diamond necklace of the Indian ocean. This quad protect the freedom of navigation in the Indo/pacific region. It counter China’s pearl necklace.
Trump prevented a nuke war between India and Pakistan. Modi will not break his diamond necklace for 50% tariffs on Putin’s oil.
Trump did not prevent a nuke war between India and Pakistan. Stop being silly.
If anything; the CIA and MI6 were likely behind the terror attack in Kashmir that started the whole kerfuffle.
There are two ‘Quads’ the other one is India, Russia, China and Iran.
India does not consider itself a pawn of the great powers, but a rising great power.
But no tariffs on person-hours imported from off-shored labor.
Kayfabe check: Is it “Trump” doing this? Or is it the whole regime doing it?
Has anyone seen any evidence of the D wing introducing legislation to revert tariffs to levels specified by any actual ratified treaties or other legislation that previously specified terms? Or to the extent prior legislation was broad and allowed POTUS some discretion, are the D’s introducing new legislation to narrow the POTUS discretion? Did D’s even attempt to obstruct the BBB until it included an amendment to prevent these taxes “by” Trump?
Did R’s other than Massie attempt to block the BBB contingent on rolling back these taxes?
If none or few of these “representatives” are doing anything but chatter, then this isn’t “a Trump thing”. It’s a regime consensus thing. The regime is doing it.
And the real regime is transnational. You can hear the EU and Anglophone rulers sing from the same sheet of music on geopolitics. They’re all happy making their collective aggregate populations pay more into their collective war machine.
If it seems like the government in D.C. is a caretaker government uninterested in per capita welfare of the people in USA, that’s because it is. USA is just another province within Oceania.
Yes, the D wing introduced legislation in the Senate to require all tariffs introduced under emergency provisions to be voted on within 6 weeks. It never made it out of the Republican controlled committee.
Thanks. Did they all try to block the BBB ? Or was that too beyond their capability, because they lack the numbers? Arguably “lack the numbers”.
I still doubt their genuine opposition. But, your answer provides some plausible credibility. Harder to judge. (I already made up my mind. But, I’m an old skeptical fuck.)
This certainly seems like a boned headed move by TACO.
India has to have oil to run its economy.
Target Russia, not India & the US consumer.
Better yet, accept the reality that the U.S. cannot run the entire planet and stop instigating trouble in every country on the periphery of Russia and China.
Great Strategy for pushing India fruther into the arms of Russia and China.
This will eventually back fire on TRUMP and the U.S.
History shows that threats don’t work and neither do sanctions.
Very good down the road for the BRICS . . .
Wake up call . . . there is no longer only 1 Super Power !
Q. Who does Trump work for?
A. Himself…
No. Israel. And our (((Global rulers))) with the tiny hats. Remember USS LIBERTY?
Timmy please come back. A transgender killed 4 people in a church where his/her mother worked.
Two fatalities.
Hopefully, you’re giving the parents of those dead children your thoughts and prayers! It’s the only thing that will help. Thankfully, American children are expendable as we maximize shareholder value on gun sales.
Pink, green and purple hair dye sales and SSRI sales, too.
The kid was obviously mentally ill and should have never been sold a gun.
No way to diagnose the kid prior to selling him a gun. But they’re just American kids who are killed. Not kids from important, civilized countries. Thoughts and prayers!
Anyone wanting to change their gender is not playing with a full deck.
Every time Democrats promote gun control, it spurs gun sales. California has numerous gun laws and they haven’t stopped gun crimes. Criminals don’t care about laws. A few weeks ago, a person thrown out of a night club in Hollywood, got into his car and drove it into people lined up outside the club. Several injured.
Australia has criminals, but no mass murders with guns in over 20 years. Weird. Maybe their criminals are just nicer than ours.
Get yours while you still can. You’re going to need it.
Mixed up kid with mental issues has no problems getting a gun. Blessed are the guns.
… while they were praying… and here you are, not even sending thoughts and prayers.
You watch, within a year Cheeto Pedo will be all about gun control.
Russia and Indian develop a gen6 fighter jet. The UK, Italy and Japan develop their gen6 fighter jet. Merz and Macron cannot get along. The Eurofighter gen 5 stalled. Italy is more advance than the UK.
Tamil Nadu caste people assemble Apple and Ford. Russia and India are building
advance fighter planes. Business is Business. India needs the US, Japan and Australia for their defense against an aggressive China. China naval bases surround India. India air force, army and navy are more powerful than France, the UK and Germany.
Taco will capitulate as he has on all of the tariffs and continue to claim this was his plan all along.
Free trade bs: India buys oil from Putin and sells it directly to other countries, taking commission, transferring dollars and Euros to Putin. Jane (Indian) diamond dealers landed on 47st diamond district, like a locust, leaving nothing behind. They draw swastikas on their diamond safes. They bought Ft Knox gold, when it was cheap, clearing it.
Think of the cumulative harm done to US economic participants from this kind of thing–all to further a war fomented by the US ruling class (starting with the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian president in 2014). Exxon, MacDonalds, and many US companies lost large investments in Russia. All of the trade war stuff ever since has hurt US firms and consumers at least as much or more than it has hurt Russia. And it has demonstrated to the world that the US government cannot be trusted…that avoiding the $ behooves them.
All of this (plus 1.5 million dead Ukrainians) to serve the DeepState’s war machine. Nearly constant war since the 1st invasion of Iraq under Bush I, yet their hunger is never satiated. Millions of innocent civilians dead or maimed in US initiated wars in the last 35 years.
And then there is the hypocrisy that Europe if buying Russian nat gas, China is buying all manner of Russian stuff, and the US is buying Russian uranium. But let’s show we are tough by picking on India. When you can’t get your generic drug at the pharmacy next month, it’s all for the war machine.
I love how the statistics here are literally just fake (Russia is at 1 million casualties with Ukraine at roughly 250k) but it’ll get 14 upvotes suspiciously fast. Vatniks? With VPNs? On my mishtalk? It’s more likely than you think
If you believe Z, UKR has recruiting 20-30k a month since the invasion. . They started with around 1m. Add say 20*36 = 1.7m.
But then they also say they are under pressure because RUS now have as many troops on the battle field as they do.. and also say the RUS have 600-800k. 1.7m-800k=?
Choose whatever numbers suit an argument but there is no sensible reason why UKR casualties are significantly less than RUS. Be it 500k or 1m they are likely much the same.
They’re significantly less because of doctrine and application. Russia’s continued to use WW2 era human wave tactics that get platoons worth of fatalities without getting a single kill in return. I’ve got an entire library of videos to illustrate this point, since it’s another hobby of mine.
Ukraine is taking casualties, and probably has ~500k total, but fatalities are far far less because they actually medivac wounded instead of leaving them to die.
Russia also has the unenviable role of the aggressor against a country that is well and truly dug in. Trench warfare favors the defender over all, and drones have multiplied that several fold.
Khorne Group, one of Ukraine’s more prestigious assault units, compiled the math on casualties using only data they could verify with video. The results? Most casualties on both sides were drone or shell inflicted (70%), and only 10% were small arms inflicted. Out of those, the slim majority of Ukrainian casualties were treated and returned to service. Russians don’t do that because they have enough men not to care. They (at least think they can) afford to lose a hundred or so North Koreans or Tuvans while inflicting maybe a dozen losses.
Russia is a colonial country with vast amounts of minorities like Tuvans and Chechens to draw from, and they don’t really care if all of them die. This historically worked well in WW2, where Germans simply couldn’t deal with the massed infantry and their tendency to use tanks as siege engines ridden by infantry as opposed to the blitzkrieg battering ram followed by infantry approach. Unfortunately for Russia, these tactics aged badly. A tank or IFV with infantry desanted on the top and sides can be hit by an ATGM much further away, killing and knocking off the unprotected infantry. Since they’re not inside the tank they’re also vulnerable to simply being shot, but Russia again doesn’t care. They’re too stuck in to fix these issues but can’t win the war unless they actually got smart.
In the end expect a rocky peace followed by Russia collapsing because they needed compete victory for this not to be a catastrophe. As they are their economy is gone, their manpower so reduced that they’re begging North Korea for help, and their international status a joke. They played a zero sum strongman game and lost.
That’s how bullies and cowards operate, it’s standard operating procedure.
I have a solution for India.
Step 1. Buy Russian oil
Step 2. Take Russian oil and dump it into a giant hole in India.
Step 3. Pump oil out….presto chango it is now Indian oil!
Step 4. Profit!
Haven’t seen much from India on the news, seems like they just don’t care and maybe that’s because TACO will be gone in 1242 days or less. They’ll make more money off oil profits than trade with US anyway.
Even if it made economic sense, Modi cannot back down on this issue because the BJP ( ruling party) has assiduously cultivated a strongman image for Modi.
This is total horseshit. Free trade is the path to peace.
So 50% of exports impacted of the 2% of GDP that exports to the US represent.
Since the tariffs are also 50%, the theoretical value of those tariffs is 0.5% of GDP if sales are unaffected.
Of course Americans will not stop buying Indian products, and they will pay more for them (the tariff), and they will buy fewer, depending on how easy it is to get something else. Unclear whether the American consumer or the Indian producer would be affected more.
India is making money selling product from this Russian oil on to the EU and to the USA, at a mark-up. If in fact the whole world were to boycot Russian oil, oil and gas prices would soar, since supply is not elastic. The world would face a crippling depression. That would be success.
But India is already moving from strategic ambiguity and studied neutrality to inuring itself to any future US pressure. Canceling orders of US weapons & technology.
Great succes…
Another trading partner and ally is driven into trade deals with China ~ by Trump.
Quite frankly Trump is turning out to be the worst “Deal Maker” of the century.
Abu Dabi just signed another LNG deal yesterday to supply India with another million tons of LNG per year for 15 years.
The economies of the Far East will do anything to avoid American products at this point. Trumps policies are isolationist.
Yep. Since the end of WW2, the US has been building good trade relations with as many countries around the world as possible. And our Navy was there to protect that trade. This resulted in an 80 year period where almost everyone in the world benefitted, including the US. And we solidified ourselves as the world’s dominant country; replacing the UK who had dominated in the previous century.
The dismantling of that era began with Trump’s first term and Biden did too little to re-establish it. Now, in Trump’s second term, he is making sure he destroys it beyond repair. He is going to ensure that the rest of this century is dominated by China and perhaps India. The US will become less and less relevant, much like the UK did, when we replaced them as the world’s most dominant country.
Wooooh!
I remember – Chinese used to say “Century of Humiliation”
If you are weak you’ll be bullied.
Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
Yep. Trump is doing his best to push America’s friends, allies and trading partners away from the US and towards the rest of the world. This may reduce the US trade deficit by reducing trade itself. But it will slow the US economy overall.
I voted for Trump but I think he is way out over his skis on the whole issue of tariffs.
That said, I still would not vote for Kamala or Sleepy Joe.
And you will not vote 3rd party because… Nobody else votes it.
Funny! You will vote for a pederast and felon who inherited his wealth and went bankrupt 6 times. But you will not vote for a self made woman that has worked her way up ~ and in only one debate cornered Trump so badly that he started babbling about “eating peoples pets”.
Trump was so scared of Kamila that he refused to debate her again.
Good luck with your choice, you are going to need it…
More importantly, America will need luck in re-establishing credibility as a reliable ally and neighbor.
India is in no uncertain terms, giving Trump the Finger, just as China has.
Who does Trump work for?
A lot of people say that tariffs are deflationary. Of course, when businesses start to fail, they will liquidate everything. “Everything must go.”
Where are my small government, principled, free market republicans? Bueller? Bueller?