I don't know who this guy is, what his angle is; maybe the story he tells is as much spin as reality; but I love his this video.
Trump Attack BACKFIRES as India COOPERATES with EU, Japan, 4.5 million jobs saved
https://youtu.be/ti2ehj9QC20?si=UVzpcPQicScZIN-7
The strategic analysis behind this move in Washington must have been written on a cocktail napkin. It was a failure of thinking so predictable it's almost laughable. They clearly believed India was fragile. They believed that by squeezing these specific sectors they could cause mass unemployment, social unrest and force Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his knees. They thought he would have no choice but to capitulate to abandon India's independent foreign policy and bow to American demands. They saw a developing nation and assumed weakness. They saw a desire for multipolarity and branded it as defiance.
But this wasn't a strategic miscalculation that would imply there was a strategy to begin with. This was a purely emotional egotistical tantrum. The root cause was not trade deficits or geopolitical maneuvering. The root cause was arrogance. The infuriating belief that America gets to set the rules for everyone else and anyone who dares to chart their own course must be punished.
Trump's punch was aimed at India's economy, but his real target was its pride. And that right there was his fatal error. You don't threaten a civilization that has endured for 5,000 years with economic hardship and expect it to crumble. You only remind it of its own strength.
And in the beginning, the blow was devastating. Let's not pretend otherwise. The initial shock wave was brutal and it was felt most acutely by the most vulnerable. In Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, the heartlands of textile manufacturing factories fell silent. Over 2 million jobs were immediately endangered. Reports came in of mass layoffs of workers being sent on unpaid leave. The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry warned of lakhs of jobs, hundreds of thousands of livelihoods evaporating. In West Bengal alone, labor intensive units reported losses of rupee 45,000 crores, which is equivalent to 5.4 billion.
Imagine being an artisan in Surat or Jaipur. Your family having polished gems for generations. Suddenly, your main market representing 10 to 15 billion sees your products plummet by 70% in demand. Union leaders reported 50,000 layoffs almost immediately. These aren't just numbers on a spreadsheet. These are families, traditions, and entire communities built around a craft facing existential threats because of a political game being played thousands of miles away.
The nightmare rippled through the coastal regions of Andra Pradesh, where shrimp peelers saw their $3 billion export market face a 30% cost increase overnight, making them uncompetitive against rivals like Ecuador. In Agra and Kanpur, the hubs of India's massive footwear and leather industry, the second largest in the world, the impact was catastrophic. US exports, which sustained four million workers, dropped by half. At least 50 factories in Tamil Nadu's Amber region, a key hub, were forced to shut their doors. This was particularly devastating for women who make up 40% of the workforce in that sector. This was the intended outcome of Trump's policy. The suffering was not a side effect. It was the entire point.
The strategy was to inflict so much pain on the Indian people that they would pressure their government to surrender. It was a cruel, cynical, and deeply immoral tactic. The stock market wobbled, the rupee depreciated, and foreign institutional investment saw outflows of 28 billion. The vultures were circling, and the narrative being spun in the West was one of an India on the ropes about to be brought to heel.
But then something remarkable happened. While Washington waited for the surrender, New Delhi was drafting a masterpiece. While Trump was tweeting insults Modi was thinking. He did not retaliate in kind. He refused to get into a mud wrestling match, which is exactly what the bully wanted. A direct tariff for tariff fight would have only escalated the conflict and played into Trump's America first narrative.
Instead, Prime Minister Modi executed a strategic pivot so brilliant, so profound that it should be studied in business and political science classes for decades to come. He activated a national doctrine of resilience. He invoked the spirit of swadeshi. Now for those who don't know, swadeshi is not just a word. It's a movement, a philosophy embedded deep in the Indian soul. It means self-sufficiency born from the independence struggle against the British Empire. It's the idea that India's destiny will be forged by Indian hands for the Indian people. And what Modi did was launch a Swedeshi 2.0, a modern revival of this powerful ideal.
For the rest, you will have to listen.
