Congress MP and ex-Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari made a scathing reply on Monday to US President Donald Trump's move to put a 25% tariff on Indian imports, terming it a faulty attempt to bully India for its defence and energy ties with Russia.
Tewari, the member of the Lok Sabha from Chandigarh, was categorical in declaring that these steps would not jeopardize India's time-tested policy of strategic autonomy.
In a blunt Twitter posting, he invoked a historic analogy: "Your country deployed the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal in 1971 to discourage us from reshaping the political landscape of South Asia. We endured that. We have as a nation sufficient endurance to endure your tariff threat."
President Trump previously accused India of benefiting from the Ukrainian war through its Russian oil purchases. In a post on Truth Social, Trump alleged, "India is not only buying huge quantities of Russian oil, they are then reselling it on the open market for large profits.". They don't give a care how many Ukrainian citizens are dying due to the Russian War Machine." He then went on to impose a 25% tariff, and other penalties effective from August 1.
Tewari had already commented before the official announcement, tweeting on July 30: "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 contended that though the action could put pressure on the overall Indo-US relationship, it would not alter the basis of India's foreign policy or its sovereign prerogative to follow autonomous strategies on the world stage.
Highlighting the evolution of India’s global stance, Tewari described a continuous arc from Nehru’s non-alignment and Indira Gandhi’s self-reliance to Prime Minister Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat. In that context, Tewari remarked, “Trump has perhaps given the biggest tribute to Indian strategic exceptionalism.”
While the Congress party has been critical of the Modi government’s approach to managing ties with Washington, Tewari’s remarks struck a different tone. His comments underlined India’s deep-rooted ability to engage with world powers on equal terms — irrespective of political changes at home or abroad.
With Trump's tariff move infusing a new complexity to Indo-US bilateral trade relations, the episode has set the stage again for talk of India's diplomatic strength and ability to stand its ground in the face of increased geopolitical upheavals.
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