China challenge, India’s bid for strategic autonomy behind Trump’s harsh tariff terms: Ram Madhav

U.S. president Donald Trump’s announcements that he was imposing 25% tariffs on trade with India plus a hefty penalty for buying Russian oil, is being seen as a dramatic escalation of what was being perceived as a cooling down of the India-U.S. relationship in the new Trump regime.

Former BJP general secretary and president of the conservative think tank India Foundation, Ram Madhav, feels that the tariff announcement and the subsequent rough statements over India by Mr Trump have as much to do with China as with India itself.

“China is just months away behind U.S. in terms of its progress in deep-tech areas. India is the fourth big economic power, and the strategists in U.S. believe that is the only country that can help stem China’s rise. Majority of the countries in the EU have close trade ties with China and will be reluctant to take sides between the U.S. and China. That makes India even more important for the U.S. in its battles against China. However, Mr. Trump finds Mr. Modi a hard nut to crack and Indian foreign policy under him firmly rooting for strategic autonomy.

While the EU, South Korea and other countries quietly surrendered to Mr. Trump’s dictates, India refuses to do so increasing the unease in Washington DC. That is the reason why Mr. Trump is trying to resort to extreme measures like 25% tariffs to arm-twist India,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s statements also come in the week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared to the Lok Sabha that no world leader had attempted to stop Operation Sindoor, a riposte to the former’s frequent assertions that he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May.

Pime Minister Modi had, on Tuesday (July 29, 2025) stated in the Lok Sabha that “not a single world leader asked us to stop the operation. Our actions were precise and non-escalatory, just as we had committed,” a clear refutation of US claims that that country mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.