JPMorgan's Sajjid Chinoy Wants India To 'Finalise Trade Deals' Amid Trump Tariff Jitters, Explains Why

The US tariffs have brought an unprecedented uncertainty to the global economy policy, with central banks disjointed on their respective monetary policies. The trade deals have increased the risks of global economic slowdown and inflationary pressures amid frontloading by exporters. In the current economic scenario, will the Indian economy stand to benefit despite higher tariffs? How will the second half of 2025 look like?

Sajjid Chinoy, managing director and chief India economist at JPMorgan, said in an exclusive interview with NDTV Profit that US tariffs will hurt the global economic growth and push consumer prices. However, the top economist did not flag concerns on inflation outside of the US.

For India, Chinoy said that the government must push to finalise trade deals with the US and EU.

Chinoy, who is a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), told NDTV Profit that in the last six months, the global economy itself is the "source of uncertainty which we have not seen in decades". "This is not ending anytime soon," he warned.

The US administration has said there is another month and tariffs would kick in on Aug. 1, but it may get pushed out further. "Hence, we're living in a constant sense of uncertainty, so modeling this extremely ambitious and difficult; but this is quite worrying because the last thing that businesses wants is uncertainty," said the economist.

According to Chinoy, the US effective tariffs currently are close to 14%. "To put this in perspective, last year, the effective tariff rate was about 2%. So, we have seen an increase in tariffs by five or six times," said Chinoy. Eventually, this is going to impact either the consumer prices or profit margins of firms located in either the exporting country or the importing country.

"The future remains very uncertain," he added. The difficulty about tariffs and trade deals is that it will give an adverse supply shock to the US. "I worry less about inflation outside of the US," warned Chinoy. The economist believes that US tariffs will lead to a synchronised global economic slowdown in the second half of the year.

The US economy is expected to slow in the second half of 2025 while China has already begun to slow. However, the biggest concern is Asia - outside of India, especially the ASEAN countries. Chinoy added that exports in ASEAN economies and the rest of Asia until the middle of the year, are running at a 20% annualised rate, which is never going to sustain.

Chinoy, who has also served on the advisory council for the 15th Finance Commission, said that since US tariffs will not likely increase inflation outside of the US, so it will give central banks around the world and especially in Asia space to cut interest rates and ease the monetary policy.

Chinoy was a member of the RBI expert committee. His role was to revise and strengthen the monetary policy framework. On the current trade deal scenario, the top economist expressed hope that the India-UK trade deal is "very encouraging". He emphasised the importance of having a trade deal with the European Union.

"India needs to push on trade deals with the EU and the US, so that we can assure exporters who produce out of India, that they have relatively frictionless access to global markets," he said. Chinoy concluded that consumption in India will have to do the "heavy lifting" for the Indian economy after the India-US trade deal kicks in.