Editor's note: Ankit Prasad is a CGTN biz commentator. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

After deploying shock and awe tactics against China, the European Union, as well as America's neighbours Mexico and Canada, US President Donald Trump has now turned his gaze towards India. Multiple threats on his Truth Social account focus on two issues - India's tariff and non-tariff barriers, and its ties with Russia, Iran and the BRICS bloc. But strongly-worded as they are, Trump's words don't seem to be having the intended impact.

The broadside from Washington, perhaps unexpected in New Delhi which had counted on having good ties with Trump when he won his election back to the White House, had initially provoked some amount of alarm. Coinciding with the ongoing high-decibel session of the Indian Parliament, it triggered sharp political back-and-forth, with Trump's characterization of the Indian and Russian economies as "dead" being hotly debated.

Increasingly, however, it appears that the bullying tactics are hardening the Indian government's position, rather than coaxing it to accede to his demands.

India-US trade: The numbers and friction points

Trump's original contention, on which he has been consistent since his first term, is that India has among the highest tariffs of any major economy in the world, which is why he believes the US barely does any trade with India. As per the US Trade Representative's Office, India's average applied tariff on imports from the US stands at 17 percent, while on agricultural products it's 39 percent.

Total bilateral goods trade between India and US in 2024 stood at $129.2 billion, with India having a $45.7 billion trade surplus. This resulted in Trump imposing a 26 percent "reciprocal tariff" on India in April, which has now become a 25 percent uniform tariff plus unspecified punitive tariffs for buying oil from Russia and for being a member of BRICS. Some Indian companies have also been sanctioned by the US for trading Iranian petrochemical products.

From a purely economic lens, some of the issues flagged by Trump with regards to trade are considered more than acceptable within India. There is a growing chorus internally for India to drop some of its trade barriers - a legacy of a decades of economic protectionism that began to be shed in India's 1991 liberalization. Evidence for this are Trump's own submissions at various points that India has offered to vastly decrease tariffs, even remove them altogether for different product lines, as well as an India-UK comprehensive economic and trade agreement signed in July that has been hailed as a reorienting of how India trades with the world. Alongside, an ambitious goal of achieving a trade deal with the EU has also been announced.

How to lose friends and alienate people

However, while India may concede Trump's points about trade barriers, there are no takers for unparliamentary words, allegations and caustic jibes. Trump has called India's trade barriers obnoxious, repeatedly attempted to take credit for ending May's India-Pakistan conflict despite denials from Delhi, accused India of prolonging the Ukraine conflict by profiteering from Russian oil, and dropped a mention of India potentially buying oil from Pakistan. It's hard to say which among these mentions Indians find most provocative.

With each attack from the White House however, the corresponding counter by the Indian government has grown sharper and more detailed, culminating in a withering statement by India's Ministry of External Affairs that precisely listed US and EU imports from Russia, while offering a background for India's own Russian oil purchases. In recent months, Indian government officials have gone to great lengths to point out during their visits overseas that it was the US Biden administration that asked India to purchase Russian oil to stabilize global energy markets. A number of past US officials, including former US ambassador to India Eric Garcetti, have stated this on record.

India has also pointed out that the EU's trade with Russia dwarfs India's own. What's not mentioned (but well known) is that India-Russia defense ties, which also Trump has taken exception to, are decades old and a natural consequence of Cold war alignments following India's independence from British colonial rule in 1947. The erstwhile Soviet Union and Russia have been critical suppliers of India's military hardware - something that isn't easily decoupled even if there is intent. Quite the contrary, India appears set to publicly defy Trump by dispatching its National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to Moscow to meet with President Putin.

'Heads I win' - 'Tails you lose'

The sum total is a situation where the India-US relationship that has shifted dramatically within months. While Trump wants to "open India up like never before," increase market access, and get India to drop its potent non-tariff barriers, the tone and tenor of his approach has clearly found no takers in India's power corridors. On one hand, India's Ministry of Commerce has pointed out that it will protect and promote the welfare of its farmers, entrepreneurs, and medium and small businesses, offering more clues as to what the Trump administration really wants. On the other, the phrase "take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security" has once again been raised as a clarion call to demonstrate resolve against unilateralism and bullying.

Amid strained ties and geopolitical passive aggression, it appears talks will continue. Indian government sources have assessed the current 25 percent tariff announced by the US will have a 0.2 percent impact on GDP. However, it remains to be seen how much of the impact can be absorbed if Trump adds punitive tariffs for the various pretexts he's been building up. Interestingly, while gaming India-US negotiations, Indian think tank GTRO had actually envisioned such a tempestuous deadlocked scenario, advising strongly against retaliatory tariffs which have been shown to only provoke Trump further. Instead, it had suggested that "no deal" is the second-best outcome - better than a FTA where US will want all kinds of access and concessions, but less preferable to a "zero-for-zero" deal on different product lines - which speaks volumes of the gap that must now be bridged.

Whatever the end result will be, however, given what we've seen of the US "reciprocal tariffs" policy so far, a couple of things are evident. Negotiations under such zero-sum conditions, and with both sides accusing and counter-accusing each other, contradict the spirit of international cooperation. Hypocritical deployment of leverage and size makes bargains sound like extortion. Public barbs demeaning billions of people live long in memory. And a deal where both signatories can't stand to be on the same platform may be worse than no deal at all.

Yet despite all this, we brace for the next provocation. It's a radical new paradigm in trade negotiations—arguably more novel than Trump's campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize. And at this rate, perhaps he'll set his sights on the Economics prize next.