Sir Martin Sorrell, the executive chairman of S4 Capital and founder of WPP plc, the world's largest PR and advertising firm, remarked that India is on “fire” and that it is proving to be a viable trade alternative to China in Asia.
“India is on fire, and is an alternative in the Asian context. If countries are worried about being over-indexed to China, India is the next one to turn to," Sorrell told NDTV at the World Economic Forum's 2026 Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Sorrell was apparently refering to the strategy known as ‘China Plus One', which aims to reduce reliance on China and diversifying manufacturing into other markets.
Sorrell further pointed out that India is being looked at as the fastest growing economy by the World Bank for this year and the next one.
“India has an extremely strong positioning, playing both ends of the middle; similar to Saudi Arabia, whose biggest defence partner is US, and the biggest trade partner is China,” Sorrell said.
Sorrell called Trump “the proverbial cat among the EU pigeons” and said that the EU members are “all flurrying around”. He said that Trump's interest in Greenland may have a basis in geopolitical power consolidation due to potential interest from Russia and China.
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“There's something in Greenland position, given the geography, given the proximity to the states, and Russia and China's potential strategic interest,” he stated.
“Former US President George Bush Jr withdrew Americans from the Reykjavik (capital of Iceland) base, earlier than anticipated and the lease ended. The first country to make an indicative inquiry into using that disregarded base was China,” Sorrell said.
Sorrell stated that the risks associated with Trump's geopolitical and economic tariff policies were that they are driving EU members to form alliances with China.
He referred to the recent deal made between Canada and China to reduce the former's tariffs on Chinese EVs, in exchange for the latter decreasing retaliatory tariffs on Canada's agricultural products.
According to Sorrell, China was engaged in a “battleground for exports in Europe” and noted that Germany was increasingly turning to it for trade, and highlighted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's impending visit to the country.
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