TOI correspondent from Washington: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has warned India will lose access to the American market unless it buys US-grown corn, grinding ahead with tough language as the two sides are set to resume delicate trade negotiations.
After threatening to “sort out” India for buying Russian oil and claiming New Delhi would “say sorry” and make a deal with President Trump in a month or two, Lutnick turned up the heat on India despite President Trump himself tuning it down.
“India Brags that they have 1.4 Billion people….why won’t they buy one bushel of corn from us? Doesn’t that rub you the wrong way? President says bring down the tariffs…we have to right years of wrong. You either accept it or you are going to have a tough time doing business with the world’s greatest consumer,” Lutnick raged on the Axios Show over the weekend.
Differences over agri trade is at the heart of trade dispute with the US continually pressing for India to open its markets, particularly after being shut out by China (which has begun to buy corn and soya beans from Brazil), throwing US agriculture sector into a crisis. There is growing disquiet among US lawmakers, even Republicans from farm states like Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Don Bacon (Nebraska), about the damage Trump’s tariff war is doing to American farmers. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis has said some farmers from his state are "one crop away from bankruptcy" due to the tariffs
Indian interlocutors say there are three reasons why New Delhi does not buy American corn which the US knows all too well and such public grandstanding does not help negotiations. Among reasons they cite: India is the world’s fifth largest corn producer and is largely self-sufficient and even exports corn some years; American corn is mostly genetically-modified and India does now import GM crops (with the exception of cotton); and it is India’s right to protect its fragile agricultural sector that employs some 500 million people against imports from countries that heavily subsidize their own agriculture.
Still, while there is some scope for corn imports from the US for use in producing ethanol, they say Lutnick’s tirades, replete with misrepresentation, puts India in a difficult spot even in areas where some accommodation is possible. For instance, when asked if the U.S is not “pissing away" ties with its hardball stance, Lutnick claimed “the relationship is one-way."
"They sell to us, they take advantage of us. They block us from their economy. We are wide open for them to come in and take advantage of us,” he fumed.
While India exported $ 87.3 billion with of goods to the U.S in 2024, the U.S, far from exporting nothing or doing “no business” with India as President Trump claimed, exported $ 41.5 billion of goods to U.S., including big-ticket military sales. The trade deficit of $ 45.8 billion is projected to drop to around $ 40 billion in 2025 as India ramps up its buying of US goods. Trade in services between the two countries is about even.
Lutnick, along with White House trade counselor Peter Navarro and Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, are seen as provocateurs riling up the President on trade issues, although some analysts reckon they are only laying out his strategy of playing hardball with tough language. Critics have called Lutnick a “carnival barker” and an “uneducated broker” for echoing Trump’s fixation on tariffs.
Rajghatta is author of Kamala Harris: Phenomenal Woman