Trump spares India tariff threat missive as he unloads on allies Japan and South Korea

TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump on Monday said Washington is close to clinching a trade deal with India even as he lowered the boom on more than a dozen countries including close allies, while sparing New Delhi.

Trump sounded optimistic about an agreement with New Delhi, telling reporters, "We are close to making a deal with India," while repeating his incessant claim that he had stopped an all-out war between India and Pakistan by threatening to cut off access to US markets. Neither country has attributed their truce to tariff threats, but the US President obsessively cites that to illustrate the use of trade as an instrument of American power.

On Monday, Trump, by most accounts, brought a wrecking ball to global trade with a tirade against much of the world, which in his view has been ripping of the USA. Fourteen countries, rich and poor, big and small, allies and adversaries, were slammed with tariff warnings ranging from 40 percent to 25 percent unless they negotiated bilateral deals before August 1.

India faces the same deadline without the almost identical sloppily-written letters Trump sent to 14 countries, although that could change any time given the US President's mercurial approach to strategic ties. New Delhi has bought time mainly on account of protracted trade talks that have been going on for several months and are said to be in an advanced state. India has pledged to buy loads of American arms, energy, and other produce to whittle down the $ 45 billion trade deficit while at the same time seeking to protect its fragile agriculture sector that provides a livelihood to more than half its population.

While the negotiating window is now narrow, there is no sign that India will throw in the towel, even as Trump prepares to throw the kitchen sink, as he did on Monday with long time allies Japan and South Korea, both slammed with around 25 per cent tariffs. In letters riddled with random capitalisation and poor grammar and syntax, Trump told the prime minister of Japan, a US treaty ally, that the trade surplus Tokyo has run up against Washington constituted a "major threat" to US national security.

Identical letters citing threat to US national security was sent to leaders of Bosnia & Herzogovina (whose female President Zeljka Cvijanović was addressed as Mr President), Cambodia and Bangladesh, which have small trade surpluses with Washington with exports in the paltry billions.

Trump and his team also dialled down expectations of "90 deals in 90 days" that they had talked up at the start of the tariff war the US President initiated. Having negotiated only a framework for three sketchy agreements, Trump indicated most other countries would simply get a letter intimating them of tariff increases if they don't conclude an agreement by August 1. "It's all done," he maintained, even as aides acknowledged that instead of the White House phones "ringing off the hook" as they anticipated, many countries had not even contacted them.