USA

In a stunning turn of events, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday reversed his sweeping tariffs on most nations for at least 90 days. However, he ramped up pressure on China, on which the pause does not apply, further escalating a high-stakes confrontation between the world’s two largest economies. 

Instead, Trump slapped a punishing 125 per cent tax on all Chinese goods, while China announced new tariffs of 84 per cent on all US imports, further escalating a high-stakes confrontation between the two largest economies of the world, and fuelling fresh market volatility. The two countries have traded tit-for-tat tariff hikes repeatedly over the past week. 

After making an example out of China, the White House sent a stark warning to trading partners– “DO NOT RETALIATE AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED.”

Meanwhile, China refused to back down against America’s aggression, and its 84 per cent tariffs on US imports came into effect at 12.01 pm on Thursday, according to the Chinese state news agency, Xinhua.

Before levies came into force, Beijing’s Commerce Minister had said the ‘reciprocal tariffs’ by the US are “a serious infringement of the legitimate interests of all countries”.

Per a Xinhua report, an official from the Ministry earlier said that no one would win in a trade war.

“I want to emphasize that there is no winner in a trade war, and that China does not want a trade war. But the Chinese government will by no means sit by when the legitimate rights and interests of its people are being hurt and deprived,” the official said on Wednesday.

Trump’s U Turn

Trump’s turnabout, which came less than 24 hours after steep new tariffs kicked in on most trading partners, followed the most intense episode of financial market volatility since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The upheaval erased trillions of dollars from stock markets and led to an unsettling surge in U.S. government bond yields that appeared to catch Trump’s attention.

“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line, they were getting yippy, you know,” the American President told reporters after the announcement, referring to a golf term. 

Since returning to the White House in January, the Republican billionaire has repeatedly threatened an array of punitive measures on trading partners, only to revoke some of them at the last minute. The on-again, off-again approach has baffled world leaders and spooked business executives. Trump told reporters that he had been considering a pause for several days. On Monday, the White House denounced a report that the administration was considering such a move, calling it “fake news.”

Furthermore, the reversal of the country-specific tariffs is not absolute. A 10 per cent blanket duty on almost all US imports will remain in effect, the White House said. The announcement also does not appear to affect duties on autos, steel and aluminum that are already in place.

The 90-day freeze also does not apply to duties paid by Canada and Mexico, because their goods are still subject to 25 per cent fentanyl-related tariffs if they do not comply with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s rules of origin. Those duties remain in place for the moment, with an indefinite exemption for USMCA-compliant goods.

“Be Flexible’

The day’s events cast into stark relief the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s policies and how he and his team create and implement them.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asserted that the pullback had been the plan all along to bring countries to the bargaining table. Trump, though, later indicated that the near-panic in markets that had unfolded since his April 2 announcements had factored in to his thinking. Despite insisting for days that his policies would never change, he told reporters on  Wednesday: “You have to be flexible.”

‘China Unlikely To Change Strategy’

Experts believe that while Trump’s new strategy will come as a relief to many nations, Beijing is unlikely to change its strategy and back down. 

“China is unlikely to change its strategy: stand firm, absorb pressure, and let Trump overplay his hand. Beijing believes Trump sees concessions as a weakness, so giving ground only invites more pressure,” Daniel Russel, vice president of international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Reuters.

“Other countries will welcome the 90-day stay of execution — if it lasts — but the whiplash from constant zigzags creates more of the uncertainty that businesses and governments hate,” he added

Meanwhile, Trump indicated a resolution with China was possible as well. But officials have said they will prioritize talks with other countries.   

“China wants to make a deal,” Trump said. “They just don’t know how quite to go about it.”
 

Wall Street stocks rocketed to close solidly higher Wednesday, with dramatic advances on all three major indexes as US President Donald Trump delayed steep new tariffs hours after they took effect.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 7.9 percent to 40,608.45 and the broad-based S&P 500 Index rallied 9.5 percent to 5,456.90.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 12.2 percent to 17,124.97.

All three indexes bounced Wednesday afternoon as Trump announced a 90-day pause in country-specific tariffs that came into place earlier that day, except levies on Chinese goods.

Affected US trading partners excluding China would instead face a 10 percent tariff rate, temporarily reverting to a level that took effect over the weekend, though that already roiled markets.

Trump singled out the world’s second biggest economy however, saying its tariff rate would be raised to a prohibitive 125 percent “based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the world’s markets.”

“When markets are pricing in worst-case scenarios, it doesn’t take much good news to turn that opinion around,” said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.

He added that investors were waiting for any sense of a more reasonable trade process, saying this situation might “be less of a drag on economic activity and earnings.”

But he cautioned that “China will become hyper-aware of the fact that they’re now being isolated in this process.”

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Israel said Wednesday its troops were seizing “large areas” in Gaza and making the Palestinian territory “smaller and more isolated”, as an air strike on a residential block killed at least 23 people.

Defence Minister Israel Katz’s comments come weeks into a renewed offensive by the military on the war-battered territory, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, while an aid blockade has revived the spectre of famine for its 2.4 million people.

French President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile said that France plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the “coming months”, a move that risks antagonising Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.

Katz said that “large areas are being seized and added to Israel’s security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated”, during a visit to the newly announced Morag Corridor between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.

Katz emphasised that Israel would keep increasing pressure on Gaza “until the hostages are freed and Hamas is defeated”.

Katz also said that Israel was encouraging plans for “voluntary emigration… in accordance with the vision of the US president, which we are working to implement”.

US President Donald Trump had earlier this year proposed a plan to develop Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” while displacing its population elsewhere.

Gaza’s civil defence agency meanwhile said an Israeli air strike on a residential building in Gaza City killed at least 23 people, most of them children or women, while the military said it targeted a “senior Hamas” militant.

The strike took place in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, the agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

“There are still people trapped under the rubble,” he said.

– ‘Torn to pieces’ –

Ayub Salim, a 26-year-old Shujaiya resident, told AFP that the area was hit with “multiple missiles” and was “overcrowded with tents, displaced people and homes”.

“Dust and massive destruction filled the entire place, we couldn’t see anything, just the screams and panic of the people.”

Salim said the dead were “torn to pieces”.

A crew from the Gaza civil defence agency rushed to the scene, only to find several people trapped under the rubble, a rescuer said.

“This house was home to many people who believed they were safe. It was blown up over their heads,” rescuer Ibrahim Abu al-Rish told AFP.

“We pulled out the remains of women and children. There are still people buried under the rubble,” he said.

First responders and neighbours worked to break through the concrete floor of an entire storey that collapsed in the strike and trapped residents, AFP footage showed.

Taking turns swinging a sledgehammer through the thick, hard surface, they eventually broke a hole through which the bodies of children were extracted and taken away wrapped in dusty blankets.

– ‘Move towards recognition’ –

When asked by AFP about the strike, the Israeli military said it “struck a senior Hamas terrorist who was responsible for planning and executing terrorist attacks” from the area. It did not give the target’s name.

Hamas condemned the strike as one of the “most heinous acts of genocide.”

Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Wednesday that at least 1,482 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,846.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The strike came as CIA chief John Ratcliffe visited Jerusalem on Wednesday, days before the US holds nuclear talks with Iran and amid continued attempts to revive a ceasefire in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Macron said France could recognise a Palestinian state as early as June.

“We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron told France 5 television.

“I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,” he added.

Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin told AFP that France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood “would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two state solution”.

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US President Donald Trump said military action against Iran was “absolutely” possible if talks failed to produce a deal, adding that there was “not much time” to reach an agreement on its nuclear program.

“If necessary, absolutely,” Trump told reporters when asked if military action was an option. “If it requires military, we’re going to have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that, be the leader of that.”

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President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday said Russia was “dragging” China into the war in Ukraine, as he accused Beijing of knowing that dozens of its citizens were being recruited by Moscow’s army to fight.

Zelensky — whose war leadership has hit turbulence with Donald Trump in the White House — also said that Kyiv was ready to buy up to $50 billion of US military equipment.

He said Ukrainian officials were due to hold a meeting with a US delegation next week as part of Washington’s efforts to push Moscow and Kyiv to agree to a ceasefire.

Kyiv had details of more than 150 Chinese nationals who had deployed to the front, Zelensky said, a day after claiming Ukraine’s army had captured two Chinese citizens fighting in the eastern Donetsk region.

Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to release the captured Chinese citizens in exchange for Ukrainian POWs held in Russia.

“Such an overt involvement of Chinese citizens in combat operations on the territory of Ukraine is a deliberate step towards expanding the war,” Zelensky said. “This is yet another indication that Moscow simply needs to drag out the fighting.”

The fresh criticism of both Russia and China came hours after Beijing rejected the idea that its citizens had been recruited in big numbers to fight with Russia, and warned Chinese nationals to “avoid involvement in armed conflicts”.

“This is the second mistake for Russia. The first was North Korea. They drag other countries into war. I believe that they are now dragging China into this war,” Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv.

According to Kyiv, South Korea and Western intelligence, Pyongyang last year despatched more than 10,000 of its soldiers to support Russia’s army after Ukraine launched a brazen cross-border attack on the western Kursk region.

“The ‘Chinese’ issue is serious. There are 155 people with names and passport details who are fighting against Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine,” Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv.

A document shared with AFP by a senior Ukrainian official contained the alleged names and passport details of 168 Chinese citizens that Kyiv said had been recruited by Russia’s army, according to its intelligence.

Zelensky said he believed there were “many more” and that further information was being gathered.

He did not accuse Beijing of having directly sent the soldiers, but said Chinese authorities were aware they were being recruited.

“It is clear how they recruit them. One of the schemes is through social media, in particular TikTok and other Chinese social networks, where Russians distribute commercials,” Zelensky said.

“Beijing is aware of this,” he added.

– ‘Absolutely groundless’ –

Zelensky had a day earlier published a video of one of two alleged captured Chinese citizens wearing military fatigues and with hands bound.

In the video, the prisoner mimicked combat sounds and uttered several words in Mandarin. The Ukrainian army said Chinese ID cards and contracts for Russian military service had been found on them.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian had earlier rejected Zelensky’s previous claim that “many” Chinese citizens had been recruited by Russia to fight as “absolutely groundless”.

“The Chinese government has always asked its citizens to stay away from areas of armed conflict (and) avoid involvement in armed conflicts in any form,” he said.

He added that Beijing was verifying relevant information about the captured Chinese citizens with Kyiv.

Asked about Zelensky’s claims in a daily press briefing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment.

China presents itself as a neutral party in the three-year war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.

But it is a close political and economic partner of Russia, and NATO members have branded Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Moscow’s invasion, which it has never condemned.

“The Chinese side’s position on the issue of the Ukraine crisis is clear and unequivocal, and has won widespread approval from the international community,” Lin said.

“The Ukrainian side should correctly view China’s efforts and constructive role in pushing for a political resolution to the Ukraine crisis,” he added.

– ‘Unacceptable’ –

Zelensky said he had received signals that Washington viewed Chinese nationals fighting for Russia as “unacceptable”.

“The United States of America is very much surprised and believes that this is unacceptable. These are the signals they have sent us,” he told reporters.

Addressing US-Ukrainian cooperation, Zelensky said Kyiv had indicated to Washington it wanted to buy a “large package” of defence materiel.

“We are ready to find 30 billion or 50 billion (dollars)” for US military equipment, he said.

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Russia has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the May 9 celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Germany in World War II, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko has said.

Moscow is expecting the Indian Prime Minister at the May 9 parade. The invitation has already been sent and the visit is being worked out, Rudenko was quoted as saying by the state-run Tass news agency.

“It’s being worked out…He has an invitation,” Rudenko said on Tuesday.

In New Delhi, the Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the Prime Minister has received an invitation and “we will be announcing our participation in Victory Day celebrations at the appropriate time”.

Russia has invited leaders of several friendly nations to attend this year’s Victory Day parade.

In January 1945, the Soviet Army launched an offensive against Germany. The commanders-in-chief on May 9 signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany, which ended the war.

In July last year, Prime Minister Modi visited Moscow to attend the 22nd Russia-India summit, his first trip to the country in nearly five years. He had visited the far eastern city of Vladivostok in 2019 to attend an economic conclave.

In October last year, Modi visited the Russian city of Kazan for the BRICS summit.

During his last visit, Modi invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit India.

Putin has already accepted Modi’s invitation to visit India. He is expected to travel to India this year as part of the established framework for reciprocal annual engagements between the leaders of the two nations. However, the dates of Putin’s visit have not been revealed yet.

In his congratulatory message to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Modi on the occasion of India’s 76th Republic Day in January, Putin said that Russian-Indian relations are based on “special and privileged strategic partnership”.

Putin and Modi maintain regular contact, holding telephone conversations once every couple of months. The two leaders also hold in-person meetings, particularly on the sidelines of international events.

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Elon Musk’s young children are often seen accompanying him during official engagements, from meetings with foreign leaders to the control room of a SpaceX launch. His four-year-old son, X Æ A-Xii, commonly known as “Lil X,” is his most frequent companion and has been described by Musk as his “emotional support human.”

This term was recently highlighted by the BBC after the child’s appearance at a press briefing in the Oval Office, sparking discussions about the role of Musk’s children in his professional life.

While Musk’s child has become a regular presence during his public appearances, the appearance raised questions about the message it sends. Some commentators have noted that such a visible display of fatherhood might be perceived differently compared to a similar situation involving a woman in a high-power role. Stephanie McNeal from Glamour suggested that the public’s reaction might differ if a woman in the American government brought her child to a press conference, highlighting the gendered differences in how parents are viewed in professional settings.

Musk’s decision to bring his son to important events seems to send an intentional message, according to some experts. Irin Carmon of New York Magazine pointed out that Musk is likely trying to present himself as more than just an ambitious businessman or controversial figure online, but also as a devoted father with a balanced life. Musk’s known stance on population growth further emphasizes the importance of this image, portraying his personal investment in the future and his commitment to family life.

While the public has reacted with both amusement and curiosity to Musk’s “emotional support human,” his son’s presence reflects a broader shift in how parenthood is being integrated into high-profile professional spaces.

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order raising duties on small packages sent from China from 30 to 90 percent, a move likely to disrupt the import of popular low-cost products.

Trump raised the duty on “low-value imports” from China, due to go into effect from May 2, alongside a major increase in tariffs imposed on Chinese goods, from 34 to 84 percent, according to the White House order released Tuesday.

Trump signed an order last week canceling the duty-free exemption for goods from China valued at $800 or below.

The rule has faced heavy scrutiny as US officials pointed to the growth of Chinese-founded online retailers Shein and Temu as a factor behind a surge of shipments using the exemption in recent years.

The White House said last week that products imported under the exemption from China would be subject to a duty rate of either 30 percent of their value or $25 per item, increasing to $50 per item after June 1.

But now Washington will increase the rate further, to 90 percent, and raise the per item rate to $75 from May 2, and $150 from June 1.

In February, Trump had already scrapped the customs exemption but reversed his decision after the move caused major logistical disruptions.

China at the time responded with fury to the move, accusing the United States of “politicizing trade and economic issues and using them as tools.”

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Barring any eleventh-hour intervention, social media juggernaut Meta will stand trial next week facing serious US government allegations that it abused its market power to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp before they could become competitors.

By moving forward, the trial in a Washington federal court dashes any hopes from Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg that the return of Donald Trump to the White House would see the government let up on the enforcement of antitrust law against Big Tech.

The Meta case is being made by the Federal Trade Commission, the powerful US consumer protection agency, and could see the owner of Facebook forced to divest Instagram and WhatsApp, which have grown into global powerhouses since their buyout.

The case was originally made in December 2020, during the first Trump administration, and all eyes were on whether Trump would soften his stance against Big Tech during his second stint in the White House.

Zuckerberg, the world’s third-richest person, has made repeated visits to the White House as he tries to persuade the US leader to choose settlement instead of fighting the trial, a decision that would be extraordinary at this late stage.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson downplayed such possibilities, telling The Verge: “I think that the President recognizes that we’ve got to enforce the laws, so I’d be very surprised if anything like that ever happened.”

Zuckerberg’s lobbying efforts have included Trump inauguration fund contributions and overhauled content moderation policies favoring Republicans.

Even so, “I’m not sure Trump is persuaded that Zuckerberg is worthy of redemption,” said George Hay, an antitrust law professor at Cornell Law School.

While a White House intervention remains technically possible, it would require both presidential and FTC agreement that the case lacks merit, he added.

The Meta lawsuit represents just one of five major tech antitrust actions initiated by the US government recently. Google was found guilty of search market dominance abuse last August, while Apple and Amazon also face cases. 

Zuckerberg, his former lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg, and a long line of executives from rival companies will be taking the stand over a trial that will last at least eight weeks and kicks off on Monday.

 ‘Really scary’ 

Central to the case is Facebook’s 2012 billion-dollar purchase of Instagram — then a small but promising photo-sharing startup designed for mobile phones that now boasts two billion active users. 

An email from Zuckerberg cited by the FTC reveals the concerns: “The potential impact of Instagram is really scary and why we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.”

The FTC argues Meta’s $19-billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014 followed the same pattern, with Zuckerberg fearing the messaging app could either transform into a social network or be purchased by a competitor.

Meta’s defense will argue that substantial investments transformed these acquisitions into the blockbusters they are today, bearing little resemblance to their original versions. 

They’ll also highlight that the FTC initially approved both transactions and shouldn’t be permitted a redo.

Recent court setbacks for the FTC — including failed challenges to Meta’s Within acquisition and Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard merger — may strengthen Big Tech’s position.

Judge James Boasberg, who will decide and preside over the case, has already cautioned that the FTC “faces hard questions about whether its claims can hold up in the crucible of trial.”
 

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

“Are we going to be happy being delivery boys and girls?” Commerce minister Piyush Goyal taunted the Indian startup industry at the 2025 edition of Startup Mahakumbh in New Delhi last week. At the annual jamboree organised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade for industry upstarts, Goyal said, What are Indian startups of today – we are focused on food delivery apps, turning unemployed youth into cheap labour so the rich can get their meals without moving out of their house.”

Like typical Indian middle-class parents comparing the marksheet of the neighbour’s child with that of their own, Goyal did the inevitable side-by-side comparison with Chinese startups. Highlighting the stark contrast between the two countries, he argued that while Chinese companies developed electric mobility and mobility tech, Indian startups were focused on food delivery and gig work. That won’t do, he said. “You are the sculptors of new India. You have to make Viksit Bharat 2047 happen.”

Goyal’s lament predictably got a backlash from the startup industry, with some pointing out that the minister got his numbers wrong, and others asking him to also compare the regulatory and policy framework of the two countries for good measure. While Goyal is not entirely wrong about the slow pace of innovation in the Indian industry, where is he really coming from? Why the deeptech ‘FOMO’? It is true that the dramatic arrival of commercially viable artificial intelligence has suddenly revealed the disturbing possibility of a world divided into AI haves and have-nots.

There is, however, a deeper worry, unstated in the speech, at work. It is the foreboding of an impending war and the feeling of unpreparedness. The surge of nationalism in many countries, coupled with the retreat of democracy across the world, accentuates it. Goyal is not alone. The fear is global, and nationalist leaders want private entrepreneurs to feel and share it. But each has a different approach. While China wants the private sector to be under the party’s thumb, Europe wants to handle the private sector with kid gloves. The US industry, meanwhile, is seeking the unleash-the-crazy-billionaire approach.

The February Meeting In China

After cracking down on the private sector for the past four years, the Chinese leadership sat down with business leaders and entrepreneurs in February. President Xi Jinping told them, “The basic policies and guidelines of the (Chinese Communist) Party and the state for the development of the private economy have been incorporated into the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and will be adhered to and implemented consistently. They cannot and will not change.”

Xi urged the private sector to completely align with the objectives of the Communist Party of China for high-quality growth and national goals. “It is time for private enterprises and private entrepreneurs to show their talents.” Manoj Kewalramani, who heads China research at Takshashila Institution, points out that the choice of speakers indicated emphasis on hard tech and industrial technology over consumer tech.

Draghi Report In Europe

Presenting the Future of European Competitiveness report to the European Parliament in September last year, Mario Draghi said, “The core problem in Europe is that new companies with new technologies are not rising in our economy. In fact, there is no EU company with a market capitalisation over €100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years.” Draghi said innovating and growing big tech companies was essential for the survival of the European project. “The European Union exists to ensure that Europe’s fundamental values are always upheld: democracy, freedom, peace, equity and prosperity in a sustainable environment.”

Europe imports 80% of its digital technology, and only four out of the world’s 50 top tech companies are European. Draghi’s answer to that was preparing a conducive environment and investing in the right places. He wanted Europe to overhaul its approach to skills, using data to identify skills gaps and investing in education at every stage. “For Europe to succeed, investment in technology and in people cannot substitute for each other. They must go hand in hand.”

Suggesting urgent regulatory overhaul to create a truly European single market, the Draghi report seeks a “profound review” of funding innovation through public money. Breakthrough technologies are often “too risky or require too much financing” for the private sector to bear, it says, and bats for private investment to be reoriented towards hi-tech sectors. 

The Techbros In The US

While Chinese tech’s long march continues along Xi Jinping’s doctrine of perfecting “socialism with Chinese characteristics for the new era”, and Draghi urges innovation in a desperate attempt to preserve the European value system, US President Donald Trump and his deputy, JD Vance, play mascots for a certain kind of tech nationalism driven by billionaire Silicon Valley tech bros.

A bewildering ideological treatise titled The Technological Republic was recently published by the maverick CEO of currently America’s most valuable defence tech firm, Palantir Technologies. In the book, the author, Alex Karp, who co-founded Palantir with billionaire Peter Thiel, echoes Goyal’s sentiments about consumer app companies and bemoans the decline of American technological ambition. “The market rewarded shallow engagement with the potential of technology, as startup after startup catered to the whims of late capitalist culture without any interest in constructing the technical infrastructure that would address our most significant challenges as a nation,” Karp laments. “The age of social media platforms and food delivery apps had arrived. Medical breakthroughs, education reform, and military advances would have to wait.”

Karp and Thiel are among the influential tech billionaires and financiers backing Trump and Vance. The veep, once a sworn Trump baiter, virtually owes his political career to Thiel, who heavily funded his campaigns. Thiel uses his wealth with the intent to transform American politics.

Karp’s thesis could be read with his colleague and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar’s industrial manifesto, The Defense Reformation, which calls for drastically changing the way the government approaches the defence industry. “We have prayed at the altar of process for too long,” Sankar writes. “We have no time to waste in resurrecting the American Industrial Base we depended on in the depths of the Cold War.”

Karp argues that Silicon Valley giants that dominate the American economy have made the strategic mistake of casting themselves as existing essentially outside the country in which they were built. They saw America as a dying empire. “The vital yet messy questions of what constitutes a good life, which collective endeavours society should pursue, and what a shared and national identity can make possible, have been set aside as the anachronisms of another age,” he prefaces before advocating a sort of tech nationalism to restore America’s glory through innovation and invention.

Can India Catch Up?

The Indian minister, too, wants entrepreneurs to join the wave of nationalism sweeping through the world. In fact, it was no surprise that Goyal reserved high praise for the country’s defence industry, which was growing by leaps and bounds. Yet, entrepreneurs retort that India hardly offers ideal conditions for innovation. Far from it. They say whatever Indian startups have achieved is not because of the government but despite it. 

Data proves their point – and, perversely, Goyal’s too. In 2024, 97% of Indian households owned a mobile phone, but only 7% owned a computer or laptop. That drops to 2% in rural areas. Only two in 10 Indians know how to use a computer, but eight out of 10 can easily handle a mobile phone. ICT skills of youngsters are comparable to Russia, Brazil and Bangladesh but are way below developed economies such as Canada and the US, number crunchers at Data for India showed after analysing government-gathered data. 

Goyal, as he mentioned in his speech, may be able to inspire young Indians, but he cannot skill them to challenge the world.

(Dinesh Narayanan is a Delhi-based journalist and author of ‘The RSS And The Making Of The Deep Nation’.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author