India-UK's Pitch To Preserve Trade Orthodoxy Amid Trump Tariff Challenge

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his UK counterpart, Keir Starmer—both their countries at the receiving end of recent waves of US tariffs—made their case this week for preserving the old free trade orthodoxy being challenged by President Donald Trump.

PM Modi rolled out a lavish welcome for Starmer in Mumbai, raising 5,700 billboards and posters around the Indian financial hub, celebrating the trade deal the two men signed in July. The British prime minister, in turn, brought some 126 executives, business representatives, and university chiefs, joking that he needed a bigger plane to fit them and urging them to come home with deals.

While neither leader mentioned Trump's tariffs, both pushed back on the sort of zero-sum approach to trade that has defined the US president's negotiations with allies and rivals alike. "India and UK have shown the world the way on global trade and using that trade as a win-win partnership," PM Modi told a global fintech conference on Thursday.

Starmer similarly called the UK's expanded relationship with its fast-growing former colony "a huge win" for both nations. "Both Prime Minister Modi and I recognize that in a world which is more uncertain now in trade and the economy, it is significant that two important and great democracies, the UK and India, have signed this agreement, provided that stability and that certainty, because that's what provides the opportunities," he told reporters before leaving Mumbai.

PM Modi and Starmer are looking for all the stability they can find in a fracturing world order, with Trump slapping levies on their exports and upending the security landscapes in their respective backyards. PM Modi has, in recent weeks, burnished his ties with Russia and China amid a trade standoff with Trump, who imposed 50% tariffs on Indian goods and cracked down on skilled worker visas in a blow to the Indian service sector.

While Starmer's courtship of Trump—the UK hosted the billionaire Republican for a rare second state visit last month—has helped spare Britain the worst of the tariffs, its relatively small, open economy faces increasing threats from protectionist responses to the US. Earlier this week, Britain was swept up in European Union plans to levy tariffs of 50% on foreign steel, despite Starmer's reset efforts with Brussels in the wake of Brexit.

The India deal is the biggest signed by Britain since leaving the European Union in 2020 and could provide New Delhi with a model for a subsequent pact with Brussels. The agreement is expected to increase two-way trade between the countries by 39% over the next 15 years, adding 0.2% to British economic output, according to a UK analysis.

PM Modi called India and the UK "natural partners" while hosting Starmer at Mumbai's Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the governor of Maharashtra. Their mutual embrace of lower trade barriers runs counter to Trump's pursuit of deals aimed at rebalancing bilateral commerce in the US's favor and underscores how some major economies are resisting his protectionist vision.

"There is a core in the multilateral trading system that continues to work well," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, told reporters this week.

Starmer touted 1.3 billion pounds ($1.7 billion) of investments by Indian companies during the trip, which the UK said would create 6,900 jobs. Graphcore, the British chip designer owned by SoftBank Group Corp, announced plans to spend 1 billion pounds on infrastructure in India over the next decade, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg.

During their meeting, Starmer and Modi pledged to deepen cooperation across sectors, including education, technology, critical minerals, and defense. Major UK universities also laid out plans to expand their campuses in the South Asian nation.

On Wednesday, Starmer also met with Infosys Ltd. co-founder Nandan Nilekani - widely credited with implementing India's Unique ID system in 2009 - to seek advice on introducing a similar program in the UK.

Starmer needs to correct the narrative at home amid slow growth and stubbornly low approval ratings that have led members of his own Labour Party to question his leadership. At the fintech conference, Starmer was introduced as a "visionary."

Thus, the British prime minister was willing to overlook awkward points of disagreement with PM Modi, such as the Indian leader's warm birthday phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin just before the start of the trip to Mumbai. While Starmer said he and PM Modi discussed India's purchases of Russian oil, he highlighted Britain's push to stop the "shadow fleet" of tankers helping to fund Moscow's war effort.

PM Modi said that he and Starmer also discussed the "ongoing conflict in Ukraine" during their talks, without mentioning oil.

Secretary of State for Scotland Douglas Alexander, who accompanied Starmer on the trip, hinted ahead of the PM Modi meeting that the UK wouldn't push too hard on the issue. The two countries had "different approach towards Russia," Alexander told reporters on Wednesday, arguing that one of Starmer's strengths was his "ability to build strong personal relationships preceding policy success."

While Starmer also said he had broached with PM Modi the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, a Sikh activist from Scotland who's been detained in India for eight years, he gave no update on whether Johal would be released.

Indeed, PM Modi and Starmer pledged to deepen security ties, including expanded co-production of weapons and equipment. Starmer reaffirmed Britain's support for India to join it with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Still, there were limits to the amount of globalism Starmer, who has come under intense pressure back home to bring down immigration, was willing to embrace. The British prime minister vowed to resist demands from businesses to allow more highly skilled workers from India to come to the UK.

Speaking at a football pitch near Mumbai's Oval Maidan cricket ground on Wednesday, he said none of the business leaders on the trip had brought up the visa issue. "That wasn't part of the FTA," he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)