Millions of livelihoods are at risk, yet the Indian government remains clueless while the media spins comfortable illusions.
EACH OF THE sectors affected by the latest US tariff regime is hugely labor-intensive—oil seeds, fruit plucking and packaging, fisheries, processed foods, etc. These industries employ lakhs, probably even crores, at different stages.
Take fisheries, for instance. It has a vast ecosystem—from boat makers and maintainers, fish seed cultivators, fish feed producers, net manufacturers, to outboard engine mechanics, auctioneers and middlemen. Add cold storage, sorting, USDA/USFDA-compliant processing and packaging (with relatively high wastage), refrigerated transport, customs agents, QA inspectors and pre-shipment logistics.
US President Donald Trump signed the executive order on tariffs during his Wednesday press conference at the White House’s Rose Garden.(Courtesy: Reuters)
The same logic holds for gems & jewellery or spirits. For every US dollar exported, several thousand people benefit. The profit margins, particularly for high-end products like spirits, prawns, lobsters, crabs, and octopus, far exceed domestic returns.
What’s more alarming is that over 90% of those involved are skilled workers who would otherwise live in eternal poverty were it not for overseas profits.
The textile trade is another classic example of a farm-to-port supply chain—from cotton fields to yarn processing, machine manufacturing, middlemen, warehousing and transport. India also exports light engineering goods and small electronics, including transmission gears and switchgear—each now under serious threat.
India’s exports have long been labor- and export-driven, similar to Bangladesh’s. Yet Bangladesh has raced far ahead in the garments sector. Why?
Because Indian textiles suffer from poor quality, tailoring, profiteering, and unreliable delivery. While India boasts top international designers, it has failed to serve 200 million struggling American middle-class consumers.
Countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and Bangladesh have captured India’s markets. Our textile exports are in their death throes.
Go to a US budget store like Old Navy and compare. Indian garments are often poorly made—diaphanous ladies’ tops with bad zippers and buttons—standing in stark contrast to Southeast Asian and Latin American competitors.
Tariff or no tariff, few Americans buy such products. So, what happens to the crores of weavers, pickers, and yarn makers?
Godi Media on Tariffs!
Tirupur is the best case study of all that ails the textile sector. Yet, godi media feeds us stories about BD and Vietnam using India as a base to dodge tariffs. By that logic, every tariff-hit country should be investing here. But what if a trigger-happy Flamin’ Don catches on and treats India like another Mexico?
India’s babus, mantris, and media have lost common sense—and all sense of shame.
Even cast-iron manhole covers and plumbing fittings, largely made in the SME sector, are at risk. These firms lack pricing power, access to credit, training, R&D, QA support, and cheap energy. Ironically, it was China’s MSMEs that powered its economic rise. Try naming a thriving Indian SME today.
The Union Commerce Minister recently mocked startups for only making food delivery and home shopping apps. But 99.99% of them lack credit access. How can they attract talent or offer services without support?
Godi Media on Tariffs
Bribery for contracts is a cottage industry in India. Where will honest startups find demand?
Moreover, Indian exports already face anti-dumping and countervailing duties in the US. The new USTR tariffs don’t clarify whether the 26–27% includes those. Indians are speculating and the godi media is parroting random numbers.
Some now suspect the effective tariff could be closer to 54%.
Consider this: On high-end vehicles, India imposes 28% GST plus a 20% cess. Though cess should apply to the base GST, here it’s simply added, making it a 48% levy—with no exemption for hybrids or EVs. If such precedent exists, is it not absurd for our officials and financial press to misrepresent the USTR?
Tariffs and Godi Media!
In 2016, even before GOI wrecked SMEs with demonetisation, Flamin’ Joe had flagged tariffs. The pandemic merely delayed the reckoning.
Sleepy Joe’s arrival fooled many into believing in FTAs and American trade surpluses—especially as the US bore global defence costs. But his grotesque incompetence ended libertarian America, clinging to Cold War scripts. The US economy only rebounded thanks to Fed liquidity, which inflated prices.
Just as Germany welcomed an Austrian JCO in 1933, America turned to Flamin’ Don. Tech giants like Musk and Thiel saw in Don a man who’d do their bidding.
It’s a vision of White American supremacy, where the rest are freeloaders—wrapped in a red MAGA condom.
GOI should have seen this shift by 2021. But it was too busy styling itself on Don. That the Commerce Minister was clueless about these tariffs was clear when he told FICCI he’d welcome foreign investors leaving. His mockery of startups said the rest.
Nearly 72 hours after the USTR tariff notice, GOI remains silent—hoping to appease Don with token buys of F-35As or reduced duties on H-D bikes and Bourbon. Classic Gujju-Baniya mentality.
The challenge ahead is enormous, costly and difficult to reform. But a decade has passed with no real reform—only slogans.
If Ram Mandir and Waqf were top priorities, the regime should have also braced for trade shocks and cleaned up our corrupt, inefficient export base. Now, they offer silence and planted media narratives.
These tariffs will be disastrous—especially if the EU, our top trading partner, demands similar or better terms.
Letting the INR depreciate might help buffer exporters against tariffs, but it also risks dragging India back to the high-inflation 1990s. Without rising incomes, this inflation could spark serious law-and-order trouble.
The quake from tariffs will be stronger than the Waqf Bill backlash.
It is already too late to warn the regime. Best of luck to the gentlemen in power—if there are any left! 
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Shantanu Basu
Writer is a retired senior civil servant, public policy analyst, author and commentator.
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