Something big sounds like it's just

happened between the United States and

India. According to Donald Trump,

Washington and New Delhi have now struck

a major trade deal, one that is going to

slash tariffs, rewire India's entire

energy policy, and supposedly end New

Delhi's reliance on Russian oil. But

there's a problem, unsurprisingly.

Almost none of it is confirmed. Nothing

has been signed, and the two leaders are

describing entirely different

agreements. So, in this video, I want to

break down what's actually just

happened, what Trump has said has

happened, what India has said has

happened, what we still don't know, and

why this is, well, this so-called deal

could be politically explosive inside

India, and strategically awkward for the

United States. Let's dive in. This is

the Global Gambit. How you going

everyone? Welcome back. Here we look at

the intersection of geopolitics,

economics, and international relations

while engaging guests from historians to

intelligence officers and former heads

of state. Now, in this case, we're going

to separate the headlines from the

mechanics, what's being announced from

what's actually been agreed and

political theater from economic reality,

something we do often here. It means a

quick question though for all of you.

What do you think of this? Does it

actually mean a restore or restoration

of trust between Washington and New

Delhi or just papers over deeper damage?

Drop your comments below. You see,

because this isn't just about tariffs.

It's about leverage, trust, and how far

the United States is willing to go in

weaponizing trade again and how far we

India is willing to push back. Now to

the announcement itself. On Monday,

Donald Trump announced he breached a

trade deal with Nar Modi after a phone

call between the two leaders. Trump

claimed India had agreed to the

following. Stopping of buying Russian

oil, buying far more American energy and

goods. Slashing tariffs on US products

to zero. And in return, Trump has

claimed the US will cut tariffs on

Indian goods from 50%, one of the

highests, to 18. Now, markets have

noticed, governments have reacted, and

here I am making a video. But analysts

immedately asked a simple question. Is

this actually a deal or just a

declaration? Something that Trump likes

to do. We can talk about his supposed

peace deals when often many of them

areus or memorandum of understandings

which simply mean they have no legal

binding. They just sound good. And of

course Trump wastes no time in

leveraging them to say that he is the

unprecedented peacemaker and his lovely

board of peace. But that's the politics.

This is about the economics. You see,

before getting into the substance, it's

worth flagging a structural issue that

will hang over everything else that I

cover. What Washington has announced is

not a conventional trade agreement in a

legal sense. It's a Trump era trade

agreement, politically framed, flexible,

and potentially reversible. That

distinction matters because the US has

not concluded a true bilateral or

plurilateral free trade agreement in

years. Enthusiasm, therefore, should be

tempered. And so, with that in mind,

let's look at Trump's version more in

depth. He wrote on True Social that Modi

had agreed to stop buying Russian oil

and instead buy energy from the US and

well potentially Venezuela. Trump

claimed the US would reduce tariffs to

this 18% and India would eliminate all

tariffs and non-tariff barriers on

American goods. India more specifically

would commit to buying over 500 billion

worth of US energy, technology,

agriculture, coal and other things.

White House officials later confirmed

that punitive tariffs imposed last year

over India's Russian oil purchases, a

video that I made and you can go and

find on the channel, would be dropped as

part of this package. Now, from Trump's

framing, this is a geopolitical win, a

trade victory and prove that pressure of

course works. But that's where the story

begins to unravel because we have to

look at the Indian or Mod's side and

what they said. Nandanda Modi shortly

released his own statement and the

contrast was unsurprisingly striking.

Modi did not mention a trade deal. He

did not confirm stopping Russian oil

imports and he certainly did not commit

to buying nearly half a trillion of US

goods. He did not say India was

eliminating tariffs either. Instead, he

simply welcomed the reduction of US

tariffs to 18% on Indian exports and

praised Trump's leadership on uh on

global peace. That was it. No numbers,

no commitments, no reciprocal

concessions. And as some people I've

spoken to have put it, it looks less

like a deal and more like two political

narratives flying midair. So the point

of all of this is that Trump makes these

grandiose claims, but when you look at

the details of the opposing side, well,

the reality hits hard. We've seen this

with Trump and China. Trump claiming

that a new reality of Chinese American

relations was entering the fray and then

the Chinese pouring some pretty cold or

perhaps sub-zero temperature water on

those claims. Now, if you're enjoying

this kind of breakdown, less headline

hype and more what's actually going on,

then you'll love what I have coming up

on the channel over the next few weeks.

So, stick around, perhaps consider

subscribing. Okay, so let's talk

numbers, but of course about that most

eyebrow raising claim of all, the 500

billion in US goods. Now, myself and

others would emphasize it's wise to

treat this figure as more aspirational

than literal. To put it into

perspective, right now total US exports

to India last year were about 41 a.5

billion. US service exports were roughly

41.8 billion. So what that implies is

that Trump somehow is going to make this

jump from 83 billion or so to 500

billion. That's not a marginal increase.

It is a scale shift that would take

years if it ever happens at all.

Ambition is not inherently bad. The

newest trade with India has undersshot

its potential for decades. But framing

this as a sort of near-term commitment,

risks inflating expectations that

neither side can realistically meet.

It's also where relative advantage

versus absolute gains gets confused. In

international relations, there is an

important distinction between the

relative gains versus the absolute gains

or the relative losses versus the

absolute losses. And in this case, the

relative is very important here. If US

tariffs are going to be a fact of life

under Trump and all evidence suggests

that they will be he uses them as a

negotiating tool after all then what

matters most for exporters is relative

positioning. India landing at about 18%

other than 50 is is a smooth landing. It

also places India marginally below

several other southeastern Asian

counterparts including Vietnam and parts

of Azan more broadly. Now these are

critical countries for offshoring and

trade with the United States and that

helps at the margin. But taras are only

one factor shaping investment and supply

chain decisions. A 1 or 2% differential

does not automatically outweigh deeper

structural advantages elsewhere. Say

logistics scale clustering regulatory

predictability and integration into

regional supply chains. There's a lot of

debate around the world whether we're

seeing an end to globalization in favor

of more regionalization versus other

people who argue that globalization in

its purest form has never strictly

existed because countries tend to always

trade most of all with those that are

closest to them just simply for the

physicality and transportation costs and

such. You can find interesting talks

I've had with Martin Wolf about that on

the channel as well. You see, Vietnam's

appeal and China's before it was never

just about TAS. It was about that

ecosystem strength. Indeed, India's

entire annual government budget is

around 590 billion. So to claim that the

United States is going to be having a

500 billion worth set of goods to India

is a little bit optimistic. Trump is

effectively claiming Modi agreed to

purchase worth around 85% of India's

total annual spending. And economists in

India have been blunt. one describing

the deal as disconcerting and another

calling it just structurally unequal. So

if the US keeps an 18% tariff whilst

India drops its barriers to zero, that's

not reciprocity, it's asymmetry and of

course that matters politically.

Then there is where the political risk

for Modi becomes very acute. Agriculture

is not just another sector in India. It

is a red line. Nearly half of India's

population depends on farming for their

livelihood. Modi has already faced

sustained nationwide farmer protests so

large that they have forced his

government in the past to reverse

occasionally or reconsider their

decisions. That context matters because

the US putting pressure on agriculture

and it's long-standing. Washington has

repeatedly saw greater access for

American agricultural products including

uh genetically modified crops, an issue

that cuts straight across India's

domestic politics very very strongly.

After the announcement, US officials

openly celebrated expanded access to

India's markets. Conversely, Indian

officials are being pretty vague and

that if agriculture had been

meaningfully opened, then it would

contradict Mod's repeated promises that

farmers would never be sacrificed in

trade talks, especially with the United

States. So, if it has not, then Trump's

description of the deal is baloney,

overstated. But either way, the silence

suggests unresolved tension rather than

settled agreement. And so here comes the

core problem within all of this. There

is no published agreement. We simply

don't know whether this is a formal

trade agreement or a political

framework. Two very distinctive things.

We don't know what happens to India's

patent and intellectual property laws.

We don't know whether US technology

firms receive exemptions from India's

planned digital taxes. And we don't know

what labor or environmental standards

are attached to any of this. How

disputes will actually be resolved. And

the contrast with India's recent

agreement with the EU is also very

instructive. That deal negotiated over

more than a decade includes legal texts,

timelines, safeguards. This US

announcements announcement has none of

that which of course raises the deeper

concern precedent. The earlier decision

by Washington to impose a 25% tariff

penalty explicitly tied to India's

Russian oil purchases broke a

long-standing norm in that relationship.

For years, both sides have worked hard

to ensure that disagreements over third

countries, Russia, Iran, China,

Pakistan, for example, did not bleed

into their core strategic partnership.

Now, that firewall has been breached and

even if the penalty is going to be

rolled back, the signal remains

nonetheless. India remains a critical

consideration for the United States

broader foreign policy. This uh

counterbalancing against China in

international relations, there are

critical aspects of push and pull

factors. the United States trying for

many years, decades, to pull into India

onto its side, maybe not as a

full-fledged ally, but as at least as a

long-standing reliable partner, such as

say Saudi Arabia. However, with the

events and recklessness of the United

States administration, then China has

been able to well demonstrate perhaps

that it's not as bad or the

long-standing unique relationship that

India has with Russia and their

unwillingness to forego that because the

West simply demands them do so because

of Russia's war in Ukraine. India is a

unique country in the way that it

conducts its foreign policy. But in this

case, the Trump administration doesn't

seem to have got that memo. Now the

government in India has held the

announcement as historic and senior

ministers have promised job creation,

export growth and protection for all the

sensitive sectors but they haven't

explained how the opposition meanwhile

has gone on the offensive. Rahul Gandhi

has accused Modi of selling the country

under pressure from Washington. Farmer

groups are watching closely and a lot of

markets are feeling nervous and the

longer the details are delayed the

louder the criticisms will become. But

ultimately it's more about what the

United States has overpromised than what

India has underpromised.

So let's be precise of what this

actually represents. The announcement

stabilizes a relationship that was

sliding towards outright dysfunction. It

removes absurd tariff penalty, restores

a basic floor under US Indian ties and

gives both leaders political breathing

room. That is not nothing but it is not

a reset and it is certainly not a

restoration of trust which shouldn't

have been eradicated in the first place.

Most of the heavy lifting has already

been done earlier in this video. We've

seen why the deal is thin, why the

numbers are aspirational, why

agriculture and that Russian oil remain

unresolved, and why terrorists under

Trump are instruments of leverage rather

than settled policy. What remains,

therefore, is the aftertaste. For over

two decades, the quiet success of US

Indian relations was depoliticalization.

painful agreements over Russia, Iran,

Pakistan were deliberately quarantined

so that they didn't poison the broader

core partnership. The decision to

weaponize tariffs of India's oil choices

has shattered that norm and demonstrates

again the short-term thinking of the

Trump administration over the longerterm

strategical value. Officials who have

helped pull this relationship back from

the brink do deserve credit, but the

ceiling of this trust is now lower than

it ever was before and never really

needed to be. So this is effectively a

pause and what happens next or how

quietly things are implemented, how

often the terms are reopened and whether

any third country disputes kept out of

that relationship will matter far more

than what was simply announced. Well,

that's it for me. If you found this

breakdown useful, then be sure that

you're subscribed and give the video a

like. It's simple, but it really helps.

And I look forward to seeing you in the

next one. Don't know me, my name is P. I

am half Russian, half British and I try

to bring that global perspective to

things, not purely reiterating a western

narrative, but also a more balanced,

nuanced approach, including how I engage

my guests. But thanks a lot. See you

next time.