India negotiated from a position of vulnerability, not strength. 

QUICK READ

• The India US trade reset shows signs of coercion, not partnership.
  Punitive US tariffs in 2025 hurt India’s labour intensive exports, and relief in 2026 came only after India signalled sweeping market access and large purchase commitments.

• India negotiated from a position of vulnerability, not strength.
  Heightened scrutiny of major Indian conglomerates in US jurisdictions coincided with the trade talks, raising concerns that political and reputational pressure influenced concessions.

• Indian agriculture has been positioned as negotiating collateral.
  Moves toward zero tariffs on US farm imports expose small Indian farmers to heavily subsidised American agribusiness they cannot compete against.

• The social cost is being quietly transferred to farmers and workers.
  Agriculture and labour intensive manufacturing absorb the shock while negotiations occurred with minimal parliamentary debate or public disclosure.

• The long term risk is erosion of economic sovereignty.
  Trade deals shaped under pressure set a precedent where access to India’s vast market is extracted through leverage, leaving farmers and rural livelihoods to pay the price.

For more read the full article ..... 

FEBRUARY 2026

Is the United States Practicing Coercive Trade Diplomacy with India?

Trade negotiations are rarely neutral, but the current India–United States reset carries the unmistakable imprint of coercion rather than partnership.

The pattern is familiar in American economic statecraft. First, punitive tariffs are imposed. Then uncertainty is prolonged. Finally, relief is offered, not in exchange for reciprocity, but for structural concessions that permanently tilt the playing field.

• भारत-अमेरिका व्यापार समझौता: दबाव के संकेत 

In 2025, US tariffs on Indian exports climbed to punitive levels, in some cases approaching 50 percent.

The damage was swift. Labour intensive sectors such as textiles, leather, gems, and jewellery experienced double digit declines, with some categories contracting by as much as 40 to 60 percent.

These were not abstract losses.

They translated into factory shutdowns, layoffs, and export order cancellations across India’s most employment sensitive industries.

The 2026 agreement was then unveiled as a corrective.

“India would move toward eliminating tariffs on all American imports.

Tariffs on Indian goods would be reduced to around 18 percent.

But the price of this “relief” was extraordinary.

India would move toward eliminating tariffs on all American imports.

In parallel, it would reportedly commit to dramatically scaling up purchases from the United States, with figures circulating as high as $500 billion annually over the next five years.

In effect, US has pushed towards nearly doubling their exports to India at ZERO% tariff.

This is not trade deal. It is coercive extraction.

One side applies pressure until economic pain becomes politically inconvenient. The other side concedes market access.

• भारत-अमेरिका व्यापार समझौता: दबाव के संकेत 

That this is happening between the world’s largest democracy, India and the world’s most powerful economy, USA and that makes the imbalance more, not less, troubling.

The United States has sought access to India’s domestic market for decades, particularly in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, digital services, and defence.

What multilateral forums could not deliver, bilateral pressure now appears to be achieving.

This is coercive trade policy, dressed up as partnership.

Therefore, how and why of this deal are important questions.

Did India Enter These Negotiations from a Position of Political Vulnerability?

Trade outcomes are shaped as much by context as by content.

India did not enter the 2026 negotiations as a neutral actor with full strategic scope. It entered them under visible political and reputational strain.

At precisely this moment, Indian corporate power faces heightened scrutiny in US jurisdictions.

Investigations and legal proceedings involving major Indian conglomerates like Adani Group have become part of the American regulatory and political ecosystem.

“This is coercive trade policy, dressed up as partnership.

These are not minor irritants.

They carry potential consequences to reputational damage to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which might bring down the government too.

For any government, protecting its largest corporate friend is not merely an economic priority but a political one.

When such entities are exposed to foreign legal pressure, the state’s negotiating posture inevitably shifts. The risk is not that policy becomes illegal, but that it becomes vulnerable.

In this context, trade concessions can function as pressure valves. They reduce friction. They stabilise diplomatic relations. They buy time.

But they do so by transferring costs elsewhere, usually to sectors with weaker political voice.

• भारत-अमेरिका व्यापार समझौता: दबाव के संकेत 

This is where the apprehension deepens.

Was India negotiating purely on the basis of economic modelling and long-term national interest, or was it also negotiating to de-escalate external pressure from disclosure in Epstein files that threatened Indian ruling party’s top players like Narendra Modi himself?

The opacity of the process makes this question unavoidable.

No comprehensive white paper was released.

No parliamentary debate of consequence took place.

No sector wise impact assessment was made public before commitments were signed.

When deals of this magnitude are concluded quietly, it suggests suspicion, not trust.

Why Is Indian Agriculture Being Treated as Negotiating Collateral?

If there is one sector that exposes the asymmetry of this agreement most starkly, it is agriculture.

Indian agriculture is not merely an economic activity. It is the livelihood backbone of nearly half the population. It is socially sensitive, politically volatile, and structurally fragile.

Yet it is being placed directly in the line of fire.

“American agriculture is heavily subsidised,

In 2025, US agricultural exports to India surged by roughly 34 percent, rising to about 2.85 billion dollars (about Rs. 26,000 crore). Indian agricultural exports to the US grew by only about 5 percent, to roughly 5.9 billion dollars (about Rs. 50,000 Crore)

The imbalance is not only in value, but in capacity.

American agriculture is heavily subsidised, technologically advanced, and backed by aggressive lobbying. The US subsidies in 2020 accounted for $46 Billion (about Rs 4 Lakh Crore).

Indian agriculture is fragmented, small holder driven, and dependent on state support mechanisms.

Moving toward zero tariffs on American agricultural imports is not competition. It is exposure without bulletproof vest.

• भारत-अमेरिका व्यापार समझौता: दबाव के संकेत 

Indian farmers cannot compete with US agribusiness on price, scale, or state backing.

Once cheap imports flood domestic markets, price discovery collapses. Minimum support prices become politically harder to sustain. Farmer incomes decline. Exit from agriculture accelerates.

This is not theoretical.

It has played out repeatedly across the developing world, from Mexico under NAFTA to parts of Africa under structural adjustment regimes.

North America Free Trade Alliance - NAFTA (1994) significantly disrupted Mexican agriculture by allowing a surge of subsidized, cheaper U.S. corn and other commodities to enter the market, causing corn prices to crash by over 66% and displacing millions of small-scale farmers.

“Indian farmers cannot compete with US agribusiness

The deal, which removed tariffs and favoured US large-scale commercial farming, caused a loss of approximately 1.3 to 2 million (13 lakh to 20 lakh) agricultural jobs and intensified rural poverty, forcing many to migrate or find work in low-wage manufacturing. 

The consequence of that deal is clearly visible in today’s illegal migration from Mexico to US.

Therefore, liberal trade deal imposed under pressure produces dependency, not efficiency.

What is striking is how little public discussion has accompanied this shift. There has been no honest national conversation about Indian food security risks, rural employment shocks, or long-term land use consequences.

Agriculture appears to have been treated as spendable, a concession zone where farmer resistance is fragmented across Indian states and political costs can be managed.

“This is another East India Company scenario

If India is opening its farm sector at scale to secure geopolitical breathing room with US, it is making a gamble with consequences that will unfold slowly but relentlessly.

This is another East India Company scenario, except that this time it is the Americans, the very British cousins.

Sadly, after 250 years of colonial rule, Indian government has not learnt to lessons from imperial history and the disastrous consequences it had on once rich economy of the world, called India.

Is This Trade Deal About Economic Strategy, or Modi’s Political Damage Control?

The final and most uncomfortable question concerns motive. What exactly is this deal trying to solve.

On paper, it is about trade facilitation.

In practice, it looks like de-escalation from Epstein disclosures and storm due to objectionable connections.

De-escalation of tariffs, of diplomatic friction, and of external pressure emanating from US political and legal systems.

“Were representatives of Indian farmers included?

When trade policy is shaped under such conditions, it ceases to be strategic. It becomes transactional.

Immediate political stability is prioritised over long term economic resilience. Costs are shifted onto populations like farmers that lack access to negotiating rooms.

Were representatives of Indian farmers included in the agricultural trade negotiations?

Indian agriculture fits this pattern perfectly.

It is large, dispersed, and politically managed through subsidies rather than bargaining power.

Sacrificing it does not provoke instant political backlash.

• भारत-अमेरिका व्यापार समझौता: दबाव के संकेत 

The damage accumulates quietly, through falling prices, rising debt, and rural distress. Indian farmers face severe financial hardship and have the lowest incomes among all sectors.

Consequently, the suicide rate is the highest, with almost 10,786 farmers ending their lives in 2023 due to financial distress.

The deeper risk is precedent.

If the United States learns that market access to India’s most sensitive sectors can be extracted through calibrated pressure, this will not be the last such demand.

Then like colonial times, trade becomes a tool not of mutual benefit, but of compliance in power play.

This is not an argument against engagement with the United States.

India needs deep economic ties with major powers. But engagement without equal partnership is submission. And submission dressed up as trade deal corrodes democratic accountability of this government.

A nation of 1.4 billion people (140 Crore) should not be negotiating as though it has no alternatives. It should not be trading food security for diplomatic peace.

“But engagement without equal partnership is submission.

And it should not be insulating powerful interests at the expense of millions who will bear the adjustment costs.

If this agreement proceeds without transparency, without safeguards, and without honest acknowledgment of the coercion and pressures that shaped it,

Indian agriculture will not collapse overnight. It will be hollowed out steadily.

By the time the consequences are politically undeniable, the policy space to reverse them will be gone.

That is the real cost of coercive trade.

Not the headline numbers, but the slow erosion of Indian economic and social sovereignty exercised through silence, in 2026.