The much-publicised announcement of the “trade deal” between India and the United States first informed by US President Trump on social media, followed by Prime Minister Modi’s selective and partial disclosures on X (formerly twitter), amounts to a cynical deception on a matter of grave national importance with far-reaching consequences.
What are the actual terms of the Trump–Modi understanding? Prime Minister Modi speaks vaguely of an 18% tariff on Indian products, while Donald Trump has openly spelt out the hidden costs. According to Trump, India will stop purchasing oil from Russia and instead increase imports from the United States and Venezuela, whose oil resources the US is seeking to control through imperialist intervention.
Trump also says India has also agreed to open its markets to American goods, including agricultural produce, at ZERO tariff. US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has publicly thanked Trump for delivering a major victory for American farmers, leaving no doubt about who stands to benefit from this arrangement. This raises a fundamental question: why has the Modi government mortgaged India’s national interests, especially the interests of Indian farmers to Trump’s MAGA agenda?
If unrestricted entry of heavily subsidised American corn, ethanol, soyabean, dairy, meat, and processed food are allowed, it will have a devastating impact on Indian agriculture. Millions of small and marginal farmers, already reeling under rising input costs and declining state support, will be pushed further into crisis.
Significantly, products such as steel and aluminium remain outside the ambit of the so-called reciprocal tariffs. Indian exporters will therefore continue to face existing high tariffs on these crucial sectors. Before Trump’s aggressive tariff regime, the average tariff duty in the US was only about 2.5%, which later rose to as much as 50%. In this context, the much-hyped 18% tariff “deal” is in no way a gain for India—it is a bad deal, achieved by conceding far more than what India receives.
The reported move to ease non-tariff barriers to zero carries implications far more severe. If implemented, it would effectively trade away the interests of India’s small producers, MSMEs, and lakhs of jobs. Such a move would risk flooding Indian markets with US agricultural and small-industry products and subjecting domestic producers to brutally unequal competition from heavily subsidised American dairy, grain, meat, and processed food sectors.
What the Modi government is projecting as a major achievement will, in reality, inflict serious economic stress on rural India, which sustains more than half of the country’s population. MSMEs will be forced to compete with large American corporations, delivering a severe structural blow to “Make in India” and “Made in India”.
The deal also reflects India’s growing subordination to US geopolitical interests. The US share in India’s oil imports has already nearly doubled over the past year. It is therefore alarming that the Indian government would reportedly commit to purchasing oil from Venezuela, or to refraining from buying oil from Russia or Iran, at the behest of the United States. Any decision to buy oil from Venezuela—or not to buy from other countries—is a bilateral matter between sovereign nations, and not a prerogative of Donald Trump or the US government.
The Government must immediately place the full details of this agreement, along with the India–EU trade deal, before the people for full discussion and democratic scrutiny. Any attempt to compromise the interests of Indian farmers, the toiling masses, and the country’s sovereignty will be firmly resisted.
-- Central Committee, CPI(ML) Liberation
