Never has the world been so concerned with discussions on international trade and tariffs as in the past six months. The last time there were such focussed discussions in the media and the public on trade was when the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was agreed upon in April 1994. Even in those heady days, trade negotiation news was in the inside pages of newspapers, and not the lead story across all the countries in the world. In the past decades, national governments engaged in autopilot mode to develop and polish bilateral, multilateral and regional trade agreements, while the citizens went about their lives independent of these diplomatic exercises. All it needed was a capricious leader as the head of the biggest trading nation, and trade continues to hit headlines since months. This has been especially so in India, a country which stood to lose heavily due to the penal tariffs applied to goods exported from India to the US. With two back-to-back trade agreements — with the European Union and with the United States of America — the attention to trade news has almost been all pervading in the country. With the US Supreme Court recently striking down reciprocal tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, another round of turmoil and confusion has been unleashed. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and European Council President Antonio Costa after reaching free trade agreement between India and EU in New Delhi on Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)…This article was originally published on Mongabay
