CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI ■ ■ BHUBANESWAR  FRIDAY  AUGUST 29, 2025  `9.00  PAGES 12  LATE CITY EDITION If Indians don’t budge, I don’t think President Trump will: Hassett Trump’s top Talks still on at aides double multiple levels down on India to find way out J AYA N T H J A C O B @ New Delhi P U S H P I TA D E Y @ New Delhi HARDENING their stance against India over New Delhi’s energy trade with Russia and refusal to open up its markets for American corporations, US President Donald Trump’s two top economic advisers, Kevin Hassett and Peter Navarro, have issued sharp warnings against India. Hassett, director, National Economic Council, tied Washington’s steep tariffs on Indian goods to New Delhi’s stance on Russia. “If the Indians don’t budge, I don’t think President Trump will,” he said, calling trade negotiations with India complicated and criticising India’s ‘intransigence’ in opening up markets. White House Trade Advisor Navarro bluntly accused India of enabling Russia’s war. In an interview to Bloomberg, Navarro dubbed the Ukraine conflict ‘Modi’s war’, blaming India for prolonging the fighting by continuing to buy Russian oil. The duo’s sharp remarks signal a renewed hardline posture from the Trump administration as it links trade policy Peter Navarro with geopolitical alignment. “This isn’t just about trade,” Hassett said. “Part of it has been tied to the pressure we’ve been trying to put on Russia in order to secure a peace deal and save millions of lives. Then there’s the Indian intransigence about opening their markets to our products.” Taking a more provocative line, NavKevin Hassett arro said: “Everybody in America loses because of what India is doing… Consumers lose, businesses lose, workers lose because of high Indian tariffs. And the taxpayer? They fund Modi’s war.” Navarro also lashed out at India’s insistence on sovereign decision-making in energy policy calling it “arrogant,” and , accused the country of siding with authoritarians. “India, you’re the biggest democracy in the world. Act like one. Side with the democracies,” he said, lumping India’s Russia and China ties into a broader critique of its foreign policy alignment. WITH the 50% tariffs officially coming into force, New Delhi has intensified efforts to mitigate the fallout. According to a senior commerce ministry official, discussions are on with exporters as well as officials of the Trump administration. “Engagements with exporters are going on. Official-level engagements between the two countries are also on,” the official said. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), and the Ministry of Commerce are jointly coordinating efforts to cushion the impact on exporters. Speaking to this newspaper, an official said the government is trying to find a way out of the tariff mess and seriously pursuing engagements at multiple levels—diplomatic, political and commercial. The official said Unwavering and the strategies include putting pressure on unequivocal the Trump administration using the Demsupport for the ocrats and businesses there. “Businesses government’s are the ones who are suffering even in the stance on not US,” said the official. yielding to the Meanwhile, separate meetings between unreasonable and unethical pressure ministries and industry representatives of the reciprocal are being held. The Reserve Bank of India tariffs imposed on (RBI) has initiated dialogues with key India by the United trade bodies to address liquidity and fiStates nancial concerns triggered by the new tariffs. RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra had —Sudhir Sekhri, earlier promised exporters that all measchairman, AEPC ures would be taken to deal with the emerging situation. On Thursday, a delegation from the Federation of Indian Export Organisations met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. According to the federation, Sitharaman assured them that the government would safeguard workers’ livelihoods and urged industry leaders to reassure employees about job continuity despite global turbulence. Exporters, despite being concerned about the impact on their businesses, have largely backed the government’s stance of dealing with tariff pressure from Washington. State governments cannot file writ petitions against President and Governor on bills, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told SC on Thursday Bhagwat clears the air on retiring @ 75 R A J E S H K U M A R T H A K U R @ New Delhi CLEARING the air over his recent remark on retirement at 75, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday said it wasn’t aimed at himself or anyone else, alluding to the speculation on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I never said that I will retire or someone else should retire... We are ready to retire anytime in life and ready to work for as long as the Sangh wants us to do so,” he said on the final day of the Sangh’s three-day lecture series to mark the centenary celebrations of the RSS. Reacting to ongoing attempts to reclaim Hindu sites of worship in Kashi and Mathura, he denied the Sangh’s participation in it, but added that its volunteers (swayamsevaks) were free to make their own decisions. CENTENARY EVENT Bhagwat also suggested that every Indian family should have three children to keep the population sufficient and under control. “To keep a civilisation alive, India’s population policy suggests 2.1 (average number of children), which basically means three. But resources have to be managed too, so we must restrict it to three,” he said. On the issue of Hindu Rashtra, Bhagwat said there is no need to declare Bharat a Hindu Rashtra. “It already is. Rishis and munis have already declared it. It does not need any official proclamation,” he said, adding the Sangh cannot change its stance that Hindustan is a Hindu nation. Addressing concerns over foreign funding, he said that there should be no issue if they are used for service work. “But they should be used for that purpose alone. The problem arises when such funds are used for religious conversions. That is why restrictions became necessary .” Commenting on the language debate, Bhagwat said that all of Bharat’s languages are national languages. “All the languages of Bharat are national languages. But, there should be one common link language and it should never be a foreign language.” IMPORTANT STEP India, Canada thaw as both name envoys J AYA N T H J A C O B @ New Delhi INDIA and Canada on Thursday named senior diplomats Dinesh K Patnaik and Christopher Cooter as their new high commissioners, filling posts that had remained vacant for over 10 months amid one of the most serious diplomatic crises between the two countries in recent decades. Patnaik, a 1990-batch Indian Foreign Service officer and currently India’s ambassador to Spain, will take up his assignment in Ottawa shortly, the Ministry of External Affairs said. Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand confirmed the appointment of Cooter as high commissioner to India, calling it an “important step towards restoring necessary diplomatic services to citizens and businesses in both countries.” The appointments mark a cautious step toward normalising ties that had sharply deteriorated following allegations by then Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in September 2023 that Indian government agents were involved in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia. India had dismissed it as “abCONTINUED ON P5 surd and politically motivated”.