New Delhi, Aug 4 Manish Tewari, Congress MP from Chandigarh, and former Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, on Monday delivered a pointed rebuttal to US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 25 per cent tariff hike on Indian imports, framing the move as a misguided attempt to pressure India over its energy and defence ties with Russia.
Tewari asserted that the tariff escalation would not undermine India’s strategic autonomy.
He responded by invoking historical precedent in a post on social media: “Your nation sent the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal in 1971 to deter us from reordering the political map of South Asia. We withstood that. We have enough resilience as a nation to withstand your tariff threat.”
In another post addressing the tariff hike, the US President, in a statement on Truth Social, accused India of profiting from Russian oil while ignoring the humanitarian toll of the war in Ukraine.
“India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian oil, they are then selling it on the open market for big profits. They do not care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,” Trump wrote.
He announced that India would face a 25 per cent tariff, plus an unspecified penalty, starting August 1.
Earlier, on July 30, Tewari had written: “Would Trump’s tariff threat make any difference to the strategic autonomy that we have built up over the decades and across different dispensations and administrations? Not really.”
He added that while the tariffs may strain broader Indo-US engagement, they would not alter India’s fundamental ability to chart its own course in global affairs.
Tewari further contextualised India’s foreign policy as a continuum—from Jawaharlal Nehru’s non-alignment to Indira Gandhi’s self-reliance—now embodied in Prime Minister Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
“Trump has perhaps given the biggest tribute to Indian strategic exceptionalism,” Tewari remarked.
While the Congress party broadly criticised PM Modi-led government’s handling of US relations, Tewari’s stance diverged, emphasising India’s enduring capacity to engage with global powers on its own terms.
The episode has reignited debate on the future of Indo-US trade ties and the resilience of India’s diplomatic posture amid shifting geopolitical pressures.
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