Renowned US economist Jeffrey Sachs has sharply condemned former President Donald Trump’s decision to impose punitive tariffs on Indian goods, calling the move “the stupidest tactical move in US foreign policy.”

During an interview on Breaking Points with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Sachs argued that Trump’s protectionist measures, which included a 25–50 percent penalty tariff on imports from India, backfired both economically and diplomatically.

Far from achieving strategic goals, these tariffs eroded trust, weakened Washington’s credibility in Asia, and inadvertently strengthened alternative global power blocs such as BRICS.

Sachs, a Columbia University professor with decades of experience advising governments worldwide, emphasised that the Trump administration’s tariffs did not create any tactical advantage for the United States.

Instead, they sabotaged relations with India, a country that American policymakers had painstakingly cultivated as a crucial partner for counterbalancing China and maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific region. According to him, the tariffs caused India and other emerging economies to consolidate their cooperation through the BRICS forum, creating an unintended unifying effect.

“Donald Trump was the great unifier of the BRICS,” Sachs remarked, stressing how US missteps encouraged Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to find common ground against Washington’s aggressive trade stance.

The economist underscored that this fallout was not temporary but long-lasting. Even if the tariffs were lifted, he argued, Indian policymakers would retain the lesson that the United States was an unreliable partner, willing to destabilise trade relations for short-term political gain.

This erosion of trust, Sachs asserted, dealt a significant blow to decades of diplomatic engagement aimed at building a stronger US-India partnership. He noted that the tariffs failed to bring India to the negotiating table or secure any meaningful trade concessions, rendering the entire maneuver ineffective from a policy standpoint.

Sachs also broadened his criticism to include prominent Trump allies and advisers, whom he accused of pursuing reckless and poorly informed policies.

He singled out South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham as “the worst senator in the US” and a “fool,” while dismissing Trump’s former trade adviser Peter Navarro as intellectually incompetent, despite holding a PhD in economics. Sachs argued that such individuals pushed Trump toward damaging policies that not only hurt US credibility but also undermined long-term foreign policy objectives.

Fundamentally, Sachs’ assessment suggests that Trump’s tariff strategy failed on both tactical and strategic levels. The tariffs produced no gains in negotiations, inflicted avoidable harm on US-India relations, and simultaneously encouraged emerging economies to galvanise their collective resistance under BRICS.

Instead of asserting US leadership, Trump’s policies alienated allies and empowered rival coalitions, directly contradicting longstanding efforts to strengthen American influence in Asia and globally.

Sachs concluded that such choices revealed a deep misunderstanding within the Trump administration about how global economic diplomacy functions, leaving the US in a weakened position against rising geopolitical competitors.

Based On NDTV Report