By K Raveendran
President Donald Trump’s latest volley in the global economic battleground — a proposal to impose a 500 percent tariff on countries that do business with Russia — marks the continuation of a pattern that has come to define his trade diplomacy: bold, blustering declarations followed by strategic backpedalling.
The move, targeted at nations like India and China that have maintained significant trade ties with Russia, particularly in the energy sector, has raised eyebrows for both its sheer magnitude and its potential ramifications. But the most striking aspect of this announcement may not be the policy itself, but the growing predictability of its eventual unravelling. Trump’s tariff manoeuvres, more often than not, start with a bang and end in a whimper. While he sells them as economic nukes, they tend to behave more like firecrackers — noisy, momentarily dazzling, but rarely resulting in lasting damage or transformative policy shifts.
At the core of Trump’s approach is a belief that tariffs are not just an economic tool, but a geopolitical weapon with near-limitless deterrence power. Much like how nuclear weapons were once seen as the ultimate equalizer and enforcer of peace through mutually assured destruction, Trump appears to view tariffs as a way to enforce American dominance by threatening economic devastation. His narrative is simple and characteristically combative: trade partners have been taking advantage of the U.S. for decades, and now it’s time for them to pay up or face the wrath of an uncompromising American president. This weaponization of tariffs has not only disrupted decades of carefully negotiated trade agreements but also upended the norms of diplomacy, turning global trade into a game of high-stakes brinkmanship.
The efficacy of this tactic, however, has always been questionable. While it’s true that Trump has managed to extract some concessions from U.S. trade partners — including Japan’s agreement to increase American agricultural imports, and a limited Phase One trade deal with China — these victories often came at a high cost. American farmers, manufacturers, and consumers have borne the brunt of retaliatory tariffs and supply chain disruptions. More crucially, Trump’s tendency to dramatically announce tariffs only to retract or modify them under pressure has undermined his credibility as a negotiator. A Forbes report chronicling 22 such reversals paints a vivid picture of a president who relishes the drama of trade war more than its actual implementation.
The 500 percent tariff proposal is a textbook Trumpian gambit — shocking enough to dominate headlines, vague enough to avoid immediate scrutiny, and flexible enough for a later walk-back. It is designed less to be enforced than to serve as a warning shot, a way to jolt countries like India and China into reevaluating their oil deals with Russia. However, the flaws in this strategy are manifold. For one, such a tariff would be nearly impossible to implement without causing collateral damage to the U.S. economy. India, for instance, is a major defence partner of the U.S., a huge market for American technology, and a crucial player in the Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at counterbalancing China. Imposing a crippling tariff on Indian goods would not only alienate New Delhi but also complicate U.S. strategic interests in the region.
China, meanwhile, is too economically enmeshed with the United States to be bullied into compliance by tariffs alone. The 2018–2019 trade war, one of Trump’s signature confrontations, illustrated the limits of tariff pressure. Despite rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs that disrupted global markets, the underlying issues — intellectual property rights, market access, and technology transfer — remained largely unresolved. What’s more, the U.S. trade deficit with China continued to balloon even after tariffs were in place, suggesting that punitive duties did little to change structural imbalances.
Beyond the practical difficulties of imposing a 500 percent tariff lies the deeper issue of Trump’s inconsistency. His repeated flip-flops on tariff threats have eroded trust among both allies and adversaries. Trade policy, especially one as drastic as the one proposed, requires not just boldness but also predictability and consistency. Trump’s track record offers little of either. His erratic tariff diplomacy creates confusion in markets, triggers unnecessary panic, and leaves trade partners skeptical about the durability of any agreement reached. The problem is not just that Trump wields the tariff like a sledgehammer, but that he rarely follows through when the real hammering begins.
Initially, Trump’s tariff threats were taken seriously — global markets tumbled, central banks scrambled, and foreign governments rushed to negotiate. But over time, as these threats routinely failed to materialize or were quietly rolled back, the international community has become more desensitised. The 500 percent tariff now risks being viewed not as a serious policy but as political performance art — a gesture more aimed at the domestic audience, particularly Trump’s base, than at the global players it ostensibly targets.
There’s also a moral and strategic incongruity in punishing countries for buying Russian oil when the U.S. itself continues to engage in various economic activities with questionable partners for its own strategic or economic reasons. Attempting to enforce a one-size-fits-all moral compass through a blunt tariff instrument not only reeks of hypocrisy but also invites a backlash. Countries like India have made it clear that they will pursue their national interests, including energy security, with or without American approval. Threatening them with economic ruin only reinforces the perception of U.S. high-handedness and may push them closer to rival blocs, precisely the opposite of what American foreign policy aims to achieve.
Moreover, the idea that tariffs could be the modern geopolitical equivalent of nuclear deterrence is, at best, flawed. Nuclear weapons, for all their horrors, have a certain strategic clarity: their very existence changes the calculus of war. Tariffs, on the other hand, are messy, slow-moving, and laden with unintended consequences. They rely on complex supply chains, market psychology, and domestic political tolerance for pain. Unlike a nuclear strike, a tariff war doesn’t create immediate shock and awe; it unfolds in economic reports, unemployment lines, and inflation indexes. The damage, while real, is diffuse and often politically self-defeating.
The 500 percent tariff is likely to go the way of many other Trump proclamations: a tweetstorm, a few fiery interviews, a week of market jitters, and then a quiet disappearance from the headlines, supplanted by the next attention-grabbing announcement. It is, in essence, economic theatre dressed up as grand strategy — a dramatic performance whose actors are growing weary, and whose audience has begun to leave before the final act. (IPA Service)
