New Delhi: As US President Donald Trump has again threatened to raise tariffs on India supposedly for its Russian oil purchase, it’s instructive to see what former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who set Trump’s trade agenda and negotiated with India, had to say in a 2023 book.
Lighthizer writes in No Trade is Free that he would try to predict India’s position in talks by tracking the interests of its 15 billionaires or “oligarchs who ran the country”, giving a rare insider’s peek into how the US President’s India policy has unfolded over his two terms.
Late on Monday, Trump threatened substantial tariffs on India as he accused it of buying and reselling “massive amounts” of Russian oil “for big profits”. With Trump repeating the threat days after announcing 25% tariffs and a Russia penalty on India, a reading of Lighthizer’s book presents key insights on Trump’s India stance.
“When I was in negotiations with Indian officials, I kept a copy of the biography of each of the country’s fifteen or so billionaires on my desk. In predicting Indian government positions, I would look to the interests of these men,” Lighthizer wrote in his book, which was published in 2023.
He referred to these billionaires as “oligarchs” and said it was unusual in the extent to which they “influence government policy” in India. The 77-year-old also said that India “suffered from an extremely strong professional bureaucracy” in all areas of government.
Lighthizer, a veteran trade negotiator and once a free-trade sceptic, is widely considered to have curated policy moves of US President Donald Trump, who abruptly revoked special trade privileges to India in his first term.
India’s opposition parties have often alleged that large corporate houses and industrialists, such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, enjoy easy access to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, which work in their interests in exchange for funds.
“I can remember at one point telling an Indian friend of mine who had made a fortune in business that I thought there were fifteen oligarchs who basically ran the country. He corrected me. ‘Bob, you’re wrong. Only about seven of them actually run the country. The others just try to influence the seven’,” Lighthizer wrote in the book, which has an entire chapter dedicated to India.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has called Modi’s government a “suit-boot ki sarkar” (government for the rich) to try to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party as recently as during the 2024 general elections. The Prime Minister has outrightly rejected the allegations, saying that such deceitful political vendetta only hurts the electoral prospects of the Congress.
While the two industrialists, also two of India’s wealthiest men, have not addressed the charges publicly, their business entities have denied allegations by the Opposition on several counts.
India’s ‘protectionism’
In his second term, US President Trump is pushing on with a tariff blitz across countries as he attempts to “reorder the global economy” with the highest rates since the 1930s. Talks between New Delhi and Washington to clinch a trade deal have remained stalled, with experts saying highly protected agriculture and dairy sectors are sticky issues.
Lighthizer also referred to India’s “protectionist” stance in his book. “India is particularly protectionist in the agricultural sector, where it uses tariffs and safety standards to help politically potent farmers groups,” he wrote in his book, which is full of praise for Trump and his style of politics.
In fact, he wrote that he once told Prime Minister Modi that India was “the most protectionist country in the world” and that it was causing a large and growing trade deficit.
“Indian trade policies have long caused tensions with the United States. India uses many of the tools of modern mercantilism. It has high tariffs, a bureaucracy focused on keeping imports out, and a system of industrial policy and protectionism.”
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‘Natural friends’ India & US
Lighthizer, however, said India and the US were “natural friends”. “Perhaps, most importantly, the rise and growing militarism of China is the greatest geopolitical concern for both our nations… India feels as threatened as we do by the aggressive surge of China. There is truth in the old saying (modified for obvious reasons) that the adversary of my adversary is my friend.”
Lighthizer, once called by Trump the “greatest United States trade representative in American history”, played a crucial role in the imposition of hefty tariffs on Chinese imports during the first term of the US President.
While India-US relations grew for the most part during the presidency of Joe Biden, they have remained fragmented due to several trade and policy differences under the deceptive exterior of a vibrant bonhomie between “great friends” Trump and Modi.
Lighthizer said that the Trump administration’s strategy with India was to maintain good relations but to use what leverage it had to increase its access to India’s market to “obtain fairness and reciprocity in trade”.
He also commented on what he thought of as Modi’s personality and political vision. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a particularly interesting figure. He came up through the ranks of right-wing political organizations and clearly considers himself a nationalist. His political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is a right-wing Hindu party.”
He added: “He is an extremely gifted politician and the first leader of India who was born after its independence in 1947… Of course, Modi is dedicated to raising India out of poverty. He believes in doing it through state control of innovation, high tariffs, mercantilism, and protectionism. There are lots of hangovers from the time of British rule, but free trade is not one of them.”
High praise for Piyush Goyal
Lighthizer was sworn in as the 18th US Trade Representative (USTR) in May 2017 and worked in the position till 20 January 2021. The USTR is responsible for developing and coordinating international trade, commodity, and direct investment policy, as well as overseeing negotiations with other countries.
At the time he was chosen by Trump to serve as USTR, Lighthizer was a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (Skadden), where he practised international trade law for over 30 years. Before joining Skadden, Lighthizer served as deputy USTR for US President Ronald Reagan. During this tenure, he negotiated over two dozen bilateral international agreements, including pacts on steel, automobiles, and agricultural products.
The latest flashpoint in the recent India-US talks came last week when the US President signed an order imposing a 25 percent tariff on India’s exports, “plus an unspecified penalty” for buying Russian oil and weapons.
In the 2023 book, Lighthizer also reflected on his time negotiating with the Indian delegation on tariffs. “I said (to PM Modi) that I had been negotiating with their trade minister, Suresh Prabhu, for two years and had made absolutely no progress. At times, I said, he had not even returned my call for weeks.”
“Soon after that meeting, negotiations began in earnest. This time they were with a new trade minister named Piyush Goyal, a smart, gifted politician from Mumbai. We raised our issues: tariffs, agriculture access, medical device impediments, barriers to e-commerce and insurance, discrimination in the electronic payment sector, fish subsidies, and the list goes on. We made headway but could never quite close a deal.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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I may or may not agree with all his other statements, but the state run by billionaires is the truth.