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US President Donald Trump welcomes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House for bilateral discussions about trade and security on February 13, 2025.
Is a US-India détente near?
After months of tensions between the world’s richest country and the world’s most populous one, it appears that the United States and India are on the verge of making a trade deal.
“We’re going to be bringing the tariffs down,” US President Donald Trump said during a swearing-in ceremony for the newly-minted US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, while noting that India’s purchases of Russian oil have decreased. He didn’t give a timeframe, but added that the two sides were “pretty close” to a deal.
The inevitable question will be how much Trump lowers the tariff. The US president slapped a 25% levy on India in late July, in part because of Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. When India refused to tell their companies to stop buying Russian crude, the tariff doubled to 50%.
“India’s oil purchases from Russia are on the downward trend,” Ashok Malik, partner and chair of The Asia Group’s India practice, told GZERO. “This creates a pathway for the removal of the 25% ‘oil tariff’ on India and, coinciding with Ambassador Sergio Gor’s arrival, steps towards the trade agreement.”
How did we even get here? Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were two peas in a pod during the former’s first term in office. The two leaders believed in espousing strength and in a foreign policy that prioritized bilateral relationships over multilateral agreements. They both viewed radical Islam and China with skepticism. When they held a giant rally together in Houston in 2019 – labeled, “Howdy, Modi” – the pair held hands.
“India was central in terms of our Asian strategy… It was incredibly simpatico between the two leaders,” Matthew Bartlett, who served in the US State Department during Trump’s first term, told GZERO. “Now there’s a new, rather difficult dynamic – maybe dysfunction – to it, and you would hope that we would be able to put this back on track in short time.”
When Trump returned to office earlier this year, it appeared that the two would start where they left off. Modi visited the White House in February, and the two leaders exchanged effusive messages.
But the good times didn’t last. Six months ago, when India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire following a brief flare-up in Jammu and Kashmir, Islamabad credited the Trump administration for helping to foster the peace, whereas India said the White House wasn’t involved. The issue was exacerbated when Trump told Modi over the phone that he was proud of the role he played in fostering peace – the Indian leader rejected his counterpart’s account.
Then in July, the tariff war began. Months later, even as the US has struck deals with the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and its greatest rival China, it still hadn’t reached any sort of truce with India. Washington’s 50% levy on India is now larger than the 47% effective rate on China.
“The entire dialogue between India and the US reached a boiling point where it was just very tense in terms of relations,” said Bartlett. “I think even Modi dodged Trump on his last trip.”
Further, Trump announced last week that he would exempt Hungary from Russian oil sanctions. No such luxuries were afforded to India, the second-highest purchaser of Russian oil.
The duties have taken a toll: Indian goods exports to the US, its largest foreign market, are down 40% over the last few months. Smartphones and pharmaceuticals were hit especially hard – exports of the former plunged by 58% from May to June. In September, the country’s trade deficit reached its highest level in 13 months.
Then the season changed. Tensions started to ease during the fall, as Modi and Trump shared kind words on social media following a September phone call. Then India started to comply with the new sanctions on Russian crude – they won’t even come into place until Nov. 21. A deal now appears imminent.
While conversations are moving in the right direction again, Malik says the relationship isn’t yet back to the heady days of that famous Houston rally.
“Does this resolve all problems and clean up all the bad blood from the past few months? Likely not,” said Malik. “But that’s fodder for a considered assessment on another day.”
October 21, 2025: The owner of this cattle feedlot in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, USA, used to fly a Trump/Vance flag. The Trump/Vance flag is no longer flying at the feedlot.
Farmers feel the impact of Trump’s trade policies
These days, US farmers aren’t just worried about the weather jeopardizing their harvests. They’re keeping a close eye on geopolitical storms as well.
The American agricultural industry exports roughly 20% of its production, making it heavily reliant on global trade. This year, China – the third biggest buyer of US agriculture – has drastically cut back orders in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. While China agreed to resume buying soybeans, a major import crop, after meeting with Trump at the ASEAN summit last week, it has not bought any US corn, wheat, sorghum, or soybeans so far this year. Accordingly, the USDA projects that American agricultural exports to China will fall 30% compared to last year, to $17 billion. That’s down more than 50% since 2022.
“There’s uncertainty in the markets,” Farm Bureau economist Dr. Faith Parum explains. “Farmers are making decisions now for next year, unsure of where the markets are for what they planted this year.”
Parum says she is “optimistic” about the trade deals Trump made with Southeast Asian countries at the ASEAN summit last week, as Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam all opened up to more US exports. The region is now the fastest-growing export market for US agriculture, with over $12 billion in products shipped there last year.
But the US-China trade tensions come at a bad time for many farmers. Despite a record corn harvest this year, many US growers are losing more than $100 an acre, according to Parum, squeezed between falling crop prices, a result of losing their major buyer, and rising production costs. Parum says production costs, like fertilizer, transportation, and labor, have increased over the past few years. Fertilizer prices have not stabilized since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, and have risen since July because of China limiting exports. Meanwhile, immigration crackdowns have caused the price of farm labor to go up.
From 2020 to 2022, 61% of the hired farm workers were immigrants, and only 7% were US born – the rest were immigrants who had obtained US citizenship. As a result, according to Eurasia Group US policy expert Noah Daponte-Smith, “A lot of [workers] are losing their authorization to work or being deported outright. And that is creating labor market pressures in the food supply chain that are pushing prices up.”
“[Immigration] is one of these issues where administration policy counteracts other policies, namely: keeping food prices down,” Daponte-Smith added.
This tension can also be seen in the meat aisle. Beef prices are at record highs due to droughts which have shrunk herd sizes. Trump’s solution was to quadruple imports of Argentine beef. The deal gave Argentine President Javier Milei, an ideological ally of Trump’s, a lifeline ahead of midterm election but enraged US beef producers who were suddenly subjected to more foreign competition. The pushback was immediate, prompting Vice President JD Vance to hold a private meeting with lawmakers from leading agricultural states to hear out their grievances.
There’s a political component to this: America’s agriculture industry is disproportionately consolidated in Republican led-states like Iowa, Texas, and Nebraska, and farmers are an “ancestral” contingent of the GOP, says Daponte-Smith. Republicans have a 25-point advantage over the Democratic party in rural areas of the country, according to Pew Research Center.
“Trump’s between a rock and a hard place,” says Daponte-Smith. “The administration campaigned on an anti-inflation message, but his efforts to bring prices down anger a core Republican constituency.”
Yet farmers remain optimistic about the country’s direction, according to Purdue University, with 71% saying the US is “headed in the right direction.” However, confidence in tariffs has declined: only 51% now believe tariffs will strengthen the agricultural economy, down from 70% in spring. Meanwhile, 30% think tariffs will weaken it.
Politically, Trump appears to be moving quickly to neutralize the farm backlash, offering farmers a multibillion dollar financial support package drawn from tariff revenues.
“They don’t want this to be happening next August,” says Daponte-Smith. “That’s when it really could be an issue.”
Members of the military police special unit detain suspected drug dealers during a police operation against drug trafficking at the favela do Penha, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 28, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Massive drug raid in Brazil, Five Republicans vote to scrap Brazil tariffs, Wildlife charity eyes duke’s estate, & More
64: A massive police raid targeting a drug-trafficking organization in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, yesterday has left at least 64 people dead, including four police officers. The state governor said it was the “biggest operation” in Rio’s history. More than 40 bodies were seen strewn on the streets of the Penha favela on Wednesday.
5: Five Republican senators crossed party lines to vote to end the Trump administration’s 50% tariff on Brazil. The resolution is unlikely to pass the House, but the vote signaled growing resistance in the Republican ranks to President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff and trade agenda.
750,000: Cuba evacuated 750,000 people before Hurricane Melissa made landfall on the Caribbean island on Wednesday. The storm only adds to a torrent of challenges for the communist-ruled country, which has faced economic collapse, frequent blackouts, and a mass exodus of its citizens. The category 5 storm has weakened to category 2 since wreaking havoc in Jamaica, which is still assessing the cost.
99.9%: Will the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates today? Futures markets this morning gave a 99.9% chance of a 25 basis-point cut (that’s 0.25 percentage points). This would be the second consecutive month of rate cuts. Trump has pushed the Fed for deeper and faster rate cuts than that.
£30 million: After seven centuries of family control, the son of a British duke is looking to sell his family’s estate in north-east England, and one of the interested buyers is… a wildlife charity. The Wildlife Trusts already bought the western part of the estate last year, but the plot thickens: it’s now looking to buy the remaining 3,839 hectares for £30 million ($40 million). The charity would try to conserve and rewild the area, which is rich with wildlife. Editor’s note: People outside the UK may wonder why we included this fascinating number – but GZERO’s Zac Weisz assures us it’s a real banger for his fellow Brits.Wreckage of public transport buses involved in a head-on collision is parked at a police station near the scene of the deadly crash on the Kampala-Gulu highway in Kiryandongo district, near Gulu, northern Uganda, October 22, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Tragic car crash in Uganda, Europe’s largest economy turns east, Peru initiates state of emergency in capital city, & More
46: A horrific multi-vehicle crash on the Kampala-Gulu Highway in Uganda late last night has left 46 people dead. The pile up began after two buses traveling in opposite directions reportedly clashed “head on” as they tried to overtake two other vehicles. President Yoweri Museveni said the government would give five million shillings ($1,430) to each bereaved family.
€163.4 billion: Is Europe’s largest economy shifting east? The numbers would suggest so, as China replaced the United States as Germany’s leading trade partner. The two nations exchanged €163.4 billion ($190.7 billion) worth of products in the first eight months of this year, per Reuters, compared to US-Germany trade of €162.8 billion ($188.6 billion.) Washington has been Berlin’s largest trading partner for the last eight years, but the new US tariffs on the European Union look set to end that streak.
30: On Monday, Peruvian President Jose Jeri declared a 30-day state of emergency in the capital Lima and nearby provinces to battle rising crime. The order follows major Gen-Z led protests for action to combat crime, and similar state-of-emergency declarations under former President Dina Boluarte – she was removed 12 days ago over her inability to get crime under control.
55: Eric Lu became the first American to win the International Chopin Piano Competition in 55 years on Monday. Lu won the “Olympics of piano” after his performance of one of Chopin’s piano concertos and “Polonaise-Fantasie,” entirely from memory.
80: The United Nations isn’t the only organization turning 80 this month: the 80th National Basketball Association season began yesterday, with the defending champions Oklahoma City Thunder defeating the Houston Rockets in overtime in the opening game. The new season has also brought a renewal of US-China basketball ties, as the NBA hosted pre-season games in Macao – the first time in six years that China has hosted games.
Brazil sentences Bolsonaro: What it means for democracy and US-Brazil relations
Brazil’s Supreme Court has sentenced former President Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for plotting to overturn the 2022 election and allegedly conspiring to assassinate President Lula. In this week's "ask ian," Ian Bremmer says the verdict highlights how “your response… has nothing to do with rule of law. It has everything to do with tribal political affiliation.”
While amnesty for junior coup plotters is likely, Bolsonaro himself appears headed for jail, unless his allies return to power. Meanwhile, US sanctions and tariffs have fueled backlash inside Brazil. As Ian puts it, “Brazil is doing everything they can to hedge away from the United States.”
Three Numbers, One Story: Trump ups India's tariffs
Three Numbers, One Story: Trump ups India's tariffs
The US imposed steep 50% tariffs on Indian goods Wednesday, doubling an earlier 25% levy after New Delhi increased purchases of Russian oil. The move threatens $48.2 billion in exports, hitting labor-intensive sectors like textiles, jewelry, leather, food, and autos hardest, though pharmaceuticals and electronics are spared. Indian exporters warn of job losses and unviable businesses, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed not to yield to US pressure on agriculture and dairy access. With trade talks stalled, India is preparing reforms to boost domestic demand and diversify exports toward Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Indian ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran attend a ceremony to hand over credentials at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on April 20, 2016.
The Kremlin’s piece in the India-China puzzle: Q+A with Pankaj Saran
When US President Donald Trump threatened 50% tariffs on India last week over its purchases of Russian oil, it put Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a quandary. Delhi has been growing ever closer to the West in recent years, but it also doesn’t want to lose its decades-long relationship with Russia – and it’s all because of China.
“India also wants to maintain a certain relationship with Russia – it keeps Moscow neutral when New Delhi and Beijing fight – which depends a lot on buying something from them,” said Eurasia Group’s South Asia Practice Head Pramit Pal Chaudhuri. “Purchases of Russian defence equipment are falling so oil [is] a useful substitute.”
To better understand why India’s relationship with the Kremlin is so crucial to Modi, as well as India’s views on the Russia-Ukraine war, GZERO spoke to former Indian Ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran, who served in the role from 2016 to 2018. A diplomat for roughly four decades, Saran was also India’s deputy national security adviser from 2018 to 2021. This interview is edited for length and clarity.
Why is Russia so important to India?
For India, the primary strategic challenge is China, and it is not Russia.
India cannot afford to antagonize Russia, given the fact that in the last few years, Moscow has actually moved closer to China. So we have to keep Russia in play as a nation... The second reason is economic. We need all the natural resources and all the minerals and other resources to fuel our own growth and to meet our own demands. And thirdly, because of the fact that we’ve actually, historically speaking, had no real problems with Russia. We’ve had difficulties with the United States, with China, with Pakistan. But with Russia, the record is actually pretty clean, except for a brief period early on. And fourth, from a cultural and historical perspective, India and the Indian elite, regardless of the political parties in power, feel that you have to go and establish relationships beyond the Western world.
Is there a world in which India stops buying Russian oil?
Yes, sure. If the energy sources were to go back to normal, price-wise, India would also revert back to its normal, traditional sources, like the Gulf. Remember that, until 2022, India was virtually not importing any oil from Russia. This is quite a record, considering we have historically been an importer, and we have not imported oil from Russia, despite the best of relations since forever.
Note: There has been a discount on Russian oil ever since the European Union and the US placed sanctions on Moscow in 2022, right after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Read more here.
Is there a world in which Modi discourages Indian oil firms from buying Russian oil in response to pressure from the United States?
I can’t rule it out. What is also important is the Indian relationship with the United States. In today’s day and age, the India-US relationship has become very important, much more substantive than it ever was in the last 20-25 years… There is a lot at stake in the India-US relationship. He did stop buying Iranian oil during the first Trump administration. But the relationship with Russia is different from India-Iran.
Are the US tariff threats pushing Delhi toward Moscow?
To some extent, but it will not be a sharp swing to Russia, because the connectivities between India and the US have grown so much that it would be a very high-risk game to have any sharp swing towards Russia. But both Moscow and Beijing will definitely be quite pleased to see this sudden emergence of tensions between India and the US.
Turning to the Russia-Ukraine war: former US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t want a ceasefire and he wants victory. Do you agree with that assessment?
No, I don’t agree at all. I think this is the best chance we have to get Putin to enter into a ceasefire. And I think he also knows it. I think Alaska holds great promise. I think Putin is looking for a way out. He would be ready to get into a ceasefire, otherwise he wouldn’t go to Alaska... The question, of course, will be, what is the price he’s willing to pay if he’s offered a way out.
Is there anything you think Modi could do to encourage Putin to end the war in Ukraine?
This is a good time for Modi to talk with Putin. I’m quite sure that they’ve spoken, and I suspect also, there’s been some back and forth between Europe and Russia through the Indians… It is in India’s interest that this thing ends. I don’t see any way in which India would benefit from a continuation or an aggravation of tensions, which is not the same you can say maybe for the Chinese. Modi has tried to be part of the solution. He’s certainly not a spoiler in the mold of some of the Europeans.
An Apple Store employee walks past an illustration of iPhones at the new Apple Carnegie Library during the grand opening and media preview in Washington, U.S., May 9, 2019.
Could an iPhone really cost $3,500?
US tariffs on China are now a staggering 125%. That affects thousands of goods produced in China, but let’s take a look at one, which may be in your pocket or your hand right now: the iPhone.
CBS News reports that the price of an iPhone 16 Pro Max with 256GB of storage, which currently retails for $1,199, would climb to nearly $1,900. And that’s at the present tariff rate, which may rise further as the US-China trade war intensifies.
What about the longer term price impact? Trump’s stated goal is to have more iPhones — and other goods both high-tech and not — made in the US. High tariffs are meant to force the long-term, mass “reshoring” of manufacturing.
In principle, that’s possible, but it would come at a cost: Experts predict that a US-made iPhone could cost as much as $3,500 — and only after years of investment in new factories and workforces.
Apple recently announced it would invest $500 billion in the US, money the company said will not include manufacturing iPhones there. The White House, for its part, says it will. Watch this space…
Meanwhile, Apple is already accelerating shipments of iPhones to the US as consumers rush to buy before prices soar.