Opinion | 3 Reasons India Shouldn't Sign A Deal With A Court-Defeated Trump

The United States Supreme Court has removed the legal foundation on which Washington's sweeping reciprocal tariffs were constructed. In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the President claimed the power to impose tariffs "on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time". The Court held that such authority does not exist under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Congress alone retains the taxing power. Emergency tariffism, as practised over the past year, is unconstitutional.

Against this background, India should pause. It has rightly postponed its meeting on the proposed interim trade pact.

Figures That Keep Changing

The interim trade framework finalised by India and the US in early February was negotiated under the shadow of a 50% tariff regime, including a 25% penalty linked to Russian oil purchases. The deal reduced India's exposure to 18% under a reciprocal tariff structure. Within days of the Court's ruling, that 18% fell to 10% under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a temporary surcharge capped at 150 days. The legal and economic baseline has shifted materially.

To sign a binding agreement while the tariff instrument set of the United States is in flux would be strategically imprudent. That interim framework included significant Indian concessions, with India agreeing to either completely eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of agricultural products. The deal commits to addressing long-standing non-tariff barriers, including in medical devices and ICT (information and communication technology) goods, and to determine within six months whether US or international standards are acceptable in identified sectors. It signals intent to purchase $500 billion of US energy, aircraft, technology products, and other goods over five years, and also accepts monitoring and reimposition clauses linked to Russian oil imports.

In return, the United States applies an 18% reciprocal tariff rate and promises conditional removals under annexed procedures. That rate was already substantially above the pre-2025 average US tariff of roughly 2.5% on Indian goods. Trump had announced that temporarily, this would be 10% for all countries. Within a day, he said it would be 15% globally. The asymmetry has narrowed, but the structure remains unsettled.

There Are Three Technical Reasons to Wait

First, authority risk. The Supreme Court has made clear that sweeping tariff action requires clear congressional authorisation. The administration has pivoted to Section 122 for temporary surcharges and signalled reliance on Section 301 and Section 232 investigations for sector-specific action. These are slower, procedurally constrained and litigable. The United States still retains leverage, but the mode of leverage has changed. Any agreement signed today prices in a tariff authority that no longer exists in the form previously exercised.

Second, durability risk. The interim agreement includes a clause allowing either party to modify commitments if tariffs change. If the US reconfigures its tariffs through statutory pathways after the 150-day window, India may find itself in serial renegotiations. Waiting until the US settles into a post-ruling tariff framework would allow India to negotiate against a clearer, steady state rather than a transitional regime.

Third, strategic conditionality. The framework links trade concessions to energy sourcing, defence cooperation and broader economic security alignment. Trade is not being negotiated in isolation. The US President has publicly framed tariffs as instruments of geopolitical leverage. Even if some of this rhetoric is political theatre, the structure of the agreement embeds monitoring and reimposition mechanisms. Signing under temporary tariff relief may lock India into durable external oversight in domains that extend beyond trade.

Testing The Waters

The counterargument is serious. The trade agreement was good for us because tariffs on India were better than those on its competitors. Now that the flat rate of 15% applies across the board, committing ourselves to something that might end up being higher than our competitors doesn't make any sense.

Further, if Section 122 expires without congressional extension, the tariff structure will change again. If Section 301 investigations are launched, sectoral tariffs could rise in politically sensitive areas. If Congress asserts itself more strongly post the Supreme Court ruling, the trade landscape could shift toward legislated constraints. Signing a deal now would convert provisional leverage into irreversible concessions.

Waiting does not mean walking away. It means sequencing. India can maintain the interim framework, continue negotiations toward the broader Bilateral Trade Agreement, and insist that final commitments be aligned with the post-litigation US tariff architecture. It can use the Supreme Court ruling to seek stronger rebalancing clauses, clearer trigger mechanisms and explicit insulation against temporary surcharge phases. It can ensure that agricultural protections, standards policy and industrial strategy are not reshaped by a tariff regime that may not survive its own legal cycle.

The Supreme Court has restored constitutional boundaries in Washington, not predictability to US trade policy. That transition is underway. India should not lock itself into long-term obligations while the other side is still redefining the legal basis of its leverage.

(Aditya Sinha writes on macroeconomics and geopolitics and is a former OSD, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author