Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Capital Mind Deepak Shenoy on Tuesday dismissed US President Donald Trump's narrative of India benefits unfairly from trade. This comes after Trump on Monday said that the India-US trade relationship is a 'one-side disaster', for decades, adding that India sells to the US, “massive' amounts of goods, but they sell India very little.
Shenoy argued that the US actually has a trade surplus with India in services contrary to Trump's claims. In a post on 'X', formerly Twitter, Shenoy wrote, "The US has a trade surplus with India in services. Trump is going batshit insane on this rant about India doing less trade, but we just buy a lot more from China, just like America does. We don't buy American defense products much, because they support Pakistan.
We actually diverted a lot of oil purchases to the US after they removed some stupid rule that didn't allow them to export oil. The US has had a lot of tariffs, in textiles, specifically for India, for ages. There's a whole bunch of other non tariff barriers like the fdas sometimes illogical rulings on pharma cos. Trump is alienating India and we really want to get to a situation where we don't have to care." [sic]
The social media post evoked reactions across netizens on the escalating trade tensions between the United States and India. A user pointed out, "And US anti dumping duty on Indian products is rampant", to which Shenoy replied, that India does the anti dumping duty but don't pretend that they have no tariffs.
Another asked, what if Trump imposes tariff on services, especially on the IT sector. Shenoy replied that it won't work because India will reverse tariff their service because that's not going to help."
Shenoy's post resonated with netizens who echoed the same sentiment saying that Trump is only pushing India towards real self-reliance and diversification and his push has "only hardened India’s diversification instinct."
Trump Claims India 'Offered' To Cut Tariffs
Donald Trump on Monday claimed that India has now 'offered' to cut its tariffs to nothing, “but it's getting late”, as he said that India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia and very little from the US.
The Trump administration has imposed 25% reciprocal tariffs on India and an additional 25% levies for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the total duties imposed on India to 50%, among the highest in the world. PM Modi has asserted he can't compromise on the interests of farmers, cattle-rearers, small-scale industries, cautioning that even though pressure may increase, India will bear it.
In April 2025, Shenoy had criticised Trump's action on reciprocal tariffs saying that it could lead to reserve banks worldwide dumping the dollar in favour of alternatives. He had even said that there is no need for retaliation against Trump's move, implying that the decision may not go down well with Americans in the long run.
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