Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, VITAL BRIEFING—World’s largest country meets world’s highest tariffs, (Aug 28, 2025)
India’s highly labor-intensive textile industry has been sharply affected by the new tariffs, raising concerns that dampened demand from the U.S. could rattle Indian labor markets and reverberate throughout the subcontinent’s economy.
In this installment of Tariffs Insights, Thomas Thompson provides a comprehensive birds-eye view of how India, the world’s most populous country with a 1.4 billion people, is enduring and coping with the recent imposition of 50 percent tariffs for goods the U.S. imports from India. With India’s textile sector being hit particularly hard, the pharmaceutical industry as well as electronics and petroleum products have been spared from any tariffs whatsoever, while Indian aluminum, copper and steel exports are tariffed at a more palatable 25 percent level. Thompson also explores the potential reasons behind the sizeable tariffs and identifies India’s increased crude oil purchases from Russia as the potential driver. In 2024, India purchased about 40 percent of its total crude oil from Russia, which was significantly up from 3 percent to 5 percent of purchases from Russia before new hostilities were initiated with Ukraine in 2022. This led White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro to describe the Russia-Ukraine conflict as “Modi’s war,” referring to the Indian prime minister while asserting that India’s Russian oil purchases have been funding that war.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stiffened his resolve, telling a public rally in India, “No matter how much pressure comes, we will keep increasing our strength to withstand it.” As a result, India has markedly increased its international profile this year, especially after pivoting away from its focus on U.S. relations as tariff discussions deteriorated over the summer. India has also been ramping up its efforts to improve and extend trading relationships with non-U.S. markets, including the U.K., Japan, China and Russia.
To read the article, click World’s largest country meets world’s highest tariffs.
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