Gun to the head good for us.

"Donald Trump has set April 2 as the date for implementing reciprocal tariffs on a range of imports," and "revealed he was initially planning to enact the tariffs on April 1. However, he decided to delay by one day to avoid the possibility of being accused of an April Fool's joke." ET. "India and the United States have agreed to finalize part of a bilateral trade deal by this year but neither side gave indications of any tariff exemptions for the world's most populous nation." "India's protectionist policies and its trade surplus with the US leave it open to retaliatory tariffs from the Trump administration." ET. Trump warned of a 25%-50% tariff on Russian oil if President Putin does not sign a peace deal with Ukraine. "India would be unable to do business in the US" because "India imports over 85% of its oil needs" and "According to a CREA report, India purchased fossil fuels worth EUR 205.84 billion from Russia from the start of the war until 2 March 2025." TNIE. India exports $2.2 billion worth of auto parts to the US every year. If 25% tariffs are applied uniformly on all countries, India will not lose its competitive advantage. However, what Indian companies "do fear is pressure from importers to absorb at least part of the cost, thereby eroding profitability." TOI. "The US is pushing India to relax non-tariff barriers," including local content requirements, differential tax treatment, quality control orders, data localisation policies, Minimum Support Price on agricultural produce and a level playing field for Indian and US banks. CNBC. That would be terrifying for Indian businesses which, protected by high tariffs and non-tariff barriers, are accustomed to making huge profits by selling to Indians at high prices without having to bother about quality or innovation. South Korea "spends 5% of its GDP on R&D, whereas India only 0.7%. Of this small sum, the Indian private sector contributes a niggardly 41% against Korea's 79%. Samsung invests 8-11% in R&D, but Reliance a paltry 0.6%," wrote Prof Dipankar Gupta. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been protecting a "small team of national champions" "from foreign competition, tariffs that in 2011 had almost fallen to China's 7% level were raised to 12% level by 2022, among the highest in the world. The preference for shielding oligarchs with hefty tariffs, favorable government contracts, as well as non-tariff barriers like stifling rules for foreign-backed commerce, has been pretty well known internationally," wrote Andy Mukherjee. The Indian government is "now convinced that Indian manufacturing will never be able to produce things more cheaply or with consistently higher quality than its peers," wrote Mihir Sharma. "The two moments when India carried out substantive reforms, it had a gun held to its head." "Trump threatening to pull the trigger will be the third. It is just what was needed to wake-up India's self-congratulatory establishment from its headline-managing fantasies," wrote Shekhar Gupta. If Trump does pull the trigger on tariffs, India can respond by exporting guns to the US. Trump has officially promised to protect Second Amendment rights. The White House. Let us supply him with triggers to pull. Compensate for tariffs.