Modi Govt's Silence on US Tariffs; India Attacks UN Report on Bangladesh on Grounds That Apply to Itself; Trump Making Nuclear Proliferation Great Again

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

March 6, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

As United States President Donald Trump charges ahead with reciprocal tariffs against India, New Delhi’s response has been muted and virtually non-existent. While China, Canada, and Mexico have swiftly retaliated with counter-tariffs and WTO complaints, India has remained eerily quiet despite the obvious injustice of a fully developed, wealthy country like the US expecting tariff equalisation with a poorer nation like India across all product lines. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, currently in Washington for trade talks, has yet to issue a response, let alone a strong one. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, when asked about the tariffs in London at an event organised by Chatham House think tank, sidestepped the issue entirely, vaguely pointing to Goyal’s ongoing discussions. This comes just weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s high-profile Washington visit, which now appears to have yielded little in terms of real economic protection.

Meanwhile, global leaders are not sitting idle. Brazilian President Lula da Silva has openly defied Trump’s tariff threats, signaling that emerging economies