I’m George Gerbo, and welcome to Washington Times Weekly, where we get a chance to sit down with our reporters and talk about their coverage of the latest news and events.
And joining me today is Washington Times politics reporter Tom Howell.
[GERBO] Let’s get into some things surrounding tariffs and trade, as it deals with President Trump and his recent increase in tariffs from India, which has now raised the Indian rate to a whopping 50% on tariffs. And it comes as Narendra Modi, as you’ve written about, the Indian Prime Minister, has been strengthening or enhancing his ties with Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin over the last couple of weeks. India, the world’s largest democracy, it’s kind of trying to play both sides, have a strong relationship with the United States while also trying not to anger the neighbors that are in its backyard.
[HOWELL] It’s really quite remarkable. India is considered a very important strategic partner in the region, always seen as a kind of counterweight in the Indo-Pacific to China. But as President Trump is waging this aggressive trade agenda, imposing tariffs on different countries, he’s looking at how countries treat the U.S. while trying to tap into the rich American market, and he’s saying, “Wait a second, I don’t like what I’m seeing.” India charges really high tariffs when we try to send our products to their country. So it started there, the 25% tariff that he decided on.
But then, on top of that, he made a commitment to try to end the Ukraine war. He always talks about peace and he sees India as a great subsidizer of Moscow and Russia and its invasion because it opted to get discounted oil from Russia during the invasion. They see that as propping up Putin’s war machine. So he said, “Hey, I’m going to slap another 25% on you, bringing it to 50%.” So really, the relationship has deteriorated since then. And we saw Modi shifting the other way, hugging President Xi, hugging Vladimir Putin in really pretty remarkable scenes at a recent summit.
[GERBO] And in that tariff vein, which has impacted nations all around the world that trade with the United States, the European Union perhaps trying to shore up some of their income from trade. And that has forced them to strengthen relationships with Central America, with South America, with Brazil, specifically where it comes to wine. So French wines, German wines, very popular in the States and all across the country. Those could see higher costs as we move forward down this tariff road. And so the EU, admitting as well in a recent piece that you wrote, that they’re not going to backfill the entire loss, the potential loss of the U.S. market due to higher tariffs. But strengthening relationships across borders with countries like Brazil and Mexico could help offset some of those losses, specifically when it comes to wine and alcohol sales.
[HOWELL] Wine and alcohol are kind of interesting because they’re very geographically specific, so when Trump imposes a tariff he says, “Look, you can opt for an American-made product and you won’t have to pay a tariff.” And you know there’s a certain logic to that. It boosts domestic manufacturing. A lot of people feel that the middle of America has been hollowed out by the lack of manufacturing. But when it comes to products like wine, maybe certain cheeses, they’re linked to a geographic area. Parmigiano Reggiano is that thing from that part of Italy. Certain wines are from a certain corner of France, and it says so on the label. So it’s kind of interesting. They’re very popular here. And it’s an interesting topic and one I like to write about because of that.
And so these producers, they’re saying, look, the rich American market is still important to us, but under the recent trade deal, there’s a 15% tariff. It’s not as bad as it might have been, but they’re confronting that. And there already were underlying trends of people drinking less, so they have to kind of scramble a bit, right? They have to look at other markets, and those markets might be Brazil, Mexico, other parts of the Western Hemisphere. And so there’s other separate trade deals going on between the block and parts of Latin America, where they’re saying, hey, maybe we can make some of our money back. We’ll see what happens.
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