During his 2016 campaign for the US presidency, Donald Trump courted Indian-American voters by proclaiming he was a “big, big fan” of their ancestral land, which he called an “incredible country” and a “key strategic ally”. Indian-Americans were promised that if Mr Trump was elected, India would have a “true friend” in the White House.
But if Mr Trump considers himself a “true friend” of India, he has a funny way of showing it. Just a day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in for a second term after his landslide victory was declared last month, Mr Trump formally stripped India of its preferential access to the US market.
India’s loss of privileges under Washington’s generalised system of preferences — a programme to aid the economies of less developed countries — will hit around $6bn worth of Indian goods previously imported into the US duty-free.