India at the Table: Why Navarro’s Remark Signals a New Phase in U.S. Trade Pressure

By Sanjeev Oak

As Washington sharpens its tariff tools, Peter Navarro’s remark that “India is coming to the table” signals more than dialogue — it’s coercive choreography, aiming to bend India’s trade posture without admitting America’s own waning leverage.

Peter Navarro’s assertion that “India is coming to the table” may sound conciliatory, even promising. But buried in that line is a strategic recalibration of how Washington now wields trade policy as a tool of geopolitical leverage. Behind the veneer of dialogue is a carefully scripted pressure campaign — one that ties tariffs, energy policy, and reputational coercion into a single bargaining frame.

“India is coming to the table… they have very high tariffs. They have very high non-tariff barriers.”

This is not merely trade diplomacy. It is trade weaponised as foreign policy theatre — and India is the stage on which the United States is testing its new performance.

The theatre of pressure

Navarro’s framing does three things at once.
First, it publicly names India as an outlier — a country with “very high tariffs” that must be “brought into line.” Second, it folds India’s economic choices into a moral register, linking its discounted Russian oil imports to the financing of Moscow’s war machine. And third, it signals to domestic American constituencies — especially protectionist and nationalist blocs — that Washington is being “tough” abroad.

This triple move matters. It narrows India’s diplomatic space: any concessions now risk being framed at home as capitulation to foreign bullying, while resistance risks drawing further tariff pain. The U.S. has already deployed selective duties on Indian exports in sectors like textiles, gems and leather, and early signs of strain are visible. Navarro’s statement is therefore not a neutral observation — it is part of a coercive choreography.

“Indian refiners got in bed with the Russian refiners immediately after the invasion, and they’re making out like bandits.”

Who Navarro is — and why that matters

To decode the remark, one must understand the messenger. Navarro is not a conventional trade negotiator. He is a hard-edged economic nationalist, a long-time advocate of tariffs as a weapon, and one of the original architects of America’s ‘decoupling’ stance towards China. His return to influence has re-energised tariff hawks inside Washington.

Navarro rarely speaks without calculation: he uses public platforms to frame the moral high ground before talks begin, thereby forcing counterparts to negotiate under the shadow of American public opinion. That is what makes his words consequential — not their substance, but their signalling power.

The limits of U.S. leverage

On paper, Washington’s leverage looks formidable: punitive tariffs, the threat of secondary sanctions, and the ability to sway global investor sentiment. But each tool has limits.

Tariffs hurt U.S. importers as much as Indian exporters, and have triggered WTO disputes before. Reputational pressure works only if financial markets believe India’s fundamentals are shaky — they do not. And sanction enforcement depends on collective cooperation, especially from Europe, which has shown little appetite for decoupling from Indian supply chains or joining a U.S.-led squeeze on Russian crude via Delhi.

This is why Navarro’s remarks cloak coercion in dialogue. A direct confrontation would be costly and diplomatically messy. Framing India’s eventual engagement as “coming to the table” allows Washington to save face while seeking concessions.

India’s strategic calculus

India’s response will be shaped by three non-negotiables:
energy security, export competitiveness, and strategic autonomy.

Cheap Russian crude has been a crucial inflation buffer and industrial input. Meanwhile, export-driven sectors face rising tariff headwinds just as global demand softens. And India will not — cannot — appear to be choosing Washington over Moscow outright; that would undermine its hard-won strategic autonomy, the foundation of its current global leverage.

So what can India do? The answer is not defiance or submission, but calibrated reciprocity:

• Offer time-bound assurances on diversifying energy purchases.

• Fast-track customs and standards reforms that lower non-tariff friction.

• Bundle these with joint initiatives in digital trade, supply chains, and critical minerals, giving Washington a “win” it can sell at home without India surrendering core interests.

The diplomatic trap to avoid

India must not reduce this to a purely transactional spat — tariff-for-tariff brinkmanship would erode broader strategic trust. Nor should it indulge in symbolic defiance. Both extremes carry costs.

Instead, New Delhi must choreograph a sequenced bargain: technical concessions first, geopolitical reassurance later, and only under verifiable, reciprocal guarantees. That would defuse U.S. domestic pressures while preserving India’s room to manoeuvre.

Trade cannot be treated as separate from geopolitics — it is now one of its primary weapons.

What’s really at stake

This is about more than commerce. Navarro’s line marks a shift: trade is now explicitly being used as leverage to shape India’s geopolitical posture. The real contest is over autonomy — can India preserve policy independence while engaging deeply with a protectionist America?

The answer will shape how the wider Global South views India. If New Delhi resists pressure without isolation, it proves middle powers can hold their ground. If it bends without reciprocity, it signals that even large economies can be coerced — a precedent Washington might happily replicate elsewhere.

Mastering power without capitulation

Peter Navarro’s words are not a compliment. They are a warning wrapped in flattery — an invitation to negotiate under threat. India must read them as such.

The task is not to avoid the table, but to arrive with leverage of its own: policy clarity, market reform offers, and a firm refusal to trade sovereignty for access. That is hard diplomacy. But it is also the only way to turn coercion into coexistence — and to show that India can be a rule-shaper, not just a rule-taker, in the turbulent new trade order.