Tripti Lahiri
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
So I think we were expecting some sort of airstrikes. India said that it targeted nine different sites, some of them in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and some of them even into Pakistan.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
India has said that it didn't target any Pakistan military installations, and it described that as showing that India is trying to proceed with restraint and only pursue militant groups that it believes are associated with the attack on civilians in April.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
So Pakistan has been saying all along that while they would not act first, if India took any kind of action, then Pakistan would respond very, very strongly. And indeed, the prime minister of Pakistan has said that India's act is an act of aggression. And so I think we should very much expect to see some kind of action from Pakistan.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
Pakistan has said that, in fact, it has even already downed about five Indian jets. We haven't heard any confirmation of that from the Indian side.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
I think there is a lot of concern from experts who have been observing India and Pakistan for a long time. The tempers are perhaps warmer than they have been in a while. I think the biggest fear here is sort of the threat of some sort of a miscalculation. But I don't think that they actually do want to go to war. I mean, I think India has a lot to lose from going into a conflict at this time.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
First of all, it would then take attention away from being that good trade partner, being that alternative to China in terms of supply chains. I think it'd be very difficult to wage a war while also doing all the economic things that India needs to do And, you know, there's more at play here as well beyond just India and Pakistan. You know, India is closer to the U.S.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
now, while China has been kind of the main arms provider for Pakistan. So what happens here also has those larger ramifications of how those two powers are trying to balance out in Asia.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
So to some extent, I mean, China has also been echoing similar things to what the U.S. has said, that they're very worried about escalation and wanting the countries to de-escalate. And Iran is saying, Russia is saying, China and the U.N. is kind of issuing pleas to de-escalate. But certainly India has moved forward, and I think Pakistan will also then take another step.
WSJ What’s News
India Strikes Pakistan, Escalating Kashmir Standoff
Thank you so much for having me.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
It isn't just that U.S. tariffs are giving India an opportunity with China, but they're giving India an opportunity with those economies that had taken some of the China manufacturing in recent years, basically since Trump 1.0.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
Some of the things that seem to be in consideration are things like energy. India already used to be buying quite a lot of U.S. oil. That kind of went down when it started buying more Russian oil. So that could go up, more LNG, more defense, and probably cars. There's been a dance for a long time between India and Tesla, with India saying, we really want you to set up a factory here.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
Tesla saying, we really want to sell there, but the duties are really high. Maybe we see those duties come down, but maybe Tesla doesn't really straightaway set up any kind of factory. So those are sorts of things that people are looking at as things that are really be discussed very seriously.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
Yeah, I mean, in many ways, India has come a long way from where it used to be in the first decades of its independence. It had the strategy of import substitution. So the idea was that really keep everything out to the extent possible and try to get things made at home. But the issue was it didn't really work out great. There were a lot of substandard products. Things were really expensive.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
And then the companies weren't competing in the global markets for exports. And then in 1991, the Soviet Union was collapsing. And that was India's biggest trade partner. And India went through this financial crisis and it was forced to open up. And India's then finance minister said, actually, this is an opportunity for us. We really shouldn't have been doing this.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
And this is really going to be very good for the country. And actually, India grew a lot since then. So tariffs went down almost as low as 12%. But then in the last decade have kind of gone up again. And average tariffs are, the US says, around 17%.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
So, yeah, people here are looking at it a couple of different ways. On the one hand, they feel that having more trade, having a stronger economic relationship would bolster a sort of security and foreign policy partnership that has grown a lot over the past decade.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
And in many ways, people have said, even Indian officials, but definitely economists and trade experts, that the heft of the U.S.-Indian economic relationship doesn't quite match the sort of promise that there is or the political partnership that there is. And over the last decade, the government has really tried to put in place incentives for boosting manufacturing.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
You know, it's been kind of a mixed record for some kinds of industries where we've seen actually a lot of apparel export. Business has gone from China to Vietnam and to Bangladesh, but not necessarily to India. But India has made great strides in smartphone assembly and really believes that now it can also go to the next tier of some of the components and other parts of the value chain.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
And here, if you have these double-digit tariffs on a whole range of Chinese goods, that India kind of feels like it's going to be much cheaper to buy from us. It isn't just that U.S.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
tariffs are giving India an opportunity with China, but they're giving India an opportunity with those economies that had taken some of the China manufacturing in recent years, basically since Trump 1.0, when there was the first set of the tariffs.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
Yeah, that's definitely true. What we've seen in the last few years is that a lot of manufacturing went to Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam. And it seemed like maybe India didn't take as much of that manufacturing from China as it could have.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
And here's kind of a chance for like a reset, a second opportunity to get some of that manufacturing, if it can really signal that we're really ready to make things really very attractive for businesses to be here now. And certainly Trump is helping with that as well.
WSJ What’s News
India Sees a Golden Opportunity in U.S.-China Trade War
Thank you so much for having me.