A day after US President Donald Trump slapped a 50 per cent tariff on goods from India, the opposition Congress on Thursday trained guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, blaming him for what it called a ‘foreign policy disaster’.
Trump on Tuesday imposed a 25 per cent additional tariff on Indian goods, over and above the 25 per cent levy, accusing New Delhi of continuing to import oil from Russia and thereby funding the Ukraine war.
In a scathing post on X, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge listed a few reasons to buttress his claim that India’s diplomacy is disastrously dithering.
India's national interest is supreme. Any nation that arbitrarily penalises India for our time-tested policy of strategic autonomy, which is embedded in the ideology of Non-alignment, doesn't understand the steel frame India is made of.
— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) August 7, 2025
From the threats of 7th fleet to the…
Kharge noted that Modi kept silent when Trump claimed “at least 30 times” that he brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan after the military confrontation between the two countries following the Pahalgam terrorist attack.
On November 20, 2024, Trump had threatened to impose a 100 per cent tariff on BRICS nations. “PM Modi was sitting there, visibly smirking, while Trump declared ‘BRICS dead’!,” Kharge said.
The Congress chief further noted that Trump has been planning "reciprocal tariffs" for the last several months. “We all knew about it. You (Modi) did nothing in the Union Budget to soften the blow on our key sectors such as Agriculture, MSMEs and various industries.”
“Your ministers have been talking about negotiating a trade deal with America for months. Some of them even camped in Washington for several days," he said, accusing the government of failing to negotiate a trade deal with the US even after six months.
“Now Mr. Trump is intimidating and coercing us - but you keep quiet,” said Kharge.
The Congress leader noted in his post that India’s exports to the US amount to about ₹7.51 lakh crore (2024) and that a blanket 50 per cent tariff would mean an economic burden of ₹3.75 lakh crore.
"Our sectors like MSMEs, Agriculture, Dairy Engineering Goods, Electronic Goods, Gems & Jewellery, Drug Formulations & Biologicals, Petroleum Products and Cotton made clothes shall be hurt the most. Your government is clueless about how to deal with it. You can't even blame this foreign policy disaster on the 70 years of Congress!!" he said.
