Modi’s Trade Dilemma: Protect Textiles or Cotton
Losing access to the US consumer may hurt India’s farm economy more than cutting tariffs on produce.
India could exploit Trump’s tariff shock to rewire unproductive agriculture.
Photographer: Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images
With two weeks to avoid US President Donald Trump’s punitive 50% tariffs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has drawn a red line. India, he says, “will never compromise on the interests of its farmers, livestock producers, and fisherfolk.”
That commitment is partly dictated by realpolitik. Nearly half of India’s workforce relies on agriculture, a degree of dependence that has increased since the pandemic. It is very hard for a leader to make any concession that appears to let down the very people who have, starting in the 1960s, made the world’s most-populous nation self-sufficient in food and dairy — in the face of tremendous constraints.