I’ll resist quoting Thucydides. As usual, anothet brilliant perspective by PB Mehta:

But even if we acknowledge that the agreement has some pragmatic economic potential, it does not pass the smell test. For starters, this is not a reciprocal free-trade agreement. As Trump has made clear, America is not playing for reciprocal equality; it is playing for imperial domination. Even on its own terms, the agreement reflects this asymmetry. The new tariff regime is worse for India than what existed before Trump came to power. In a manner reminiscent of 19th-century imperial trade, the tariff structure favours the United States: India cuts tariffs to zero, while the US imposes rates as high as 18 per cent. More astonishing still, India has committed to purchasing $500 billion worth of American goods over five years. Which free-trade agreement contains a one-way obligation by one party to massively purchase goods from the other?

And this:

Acknowledging power asymmetry is realism. To internalise it so completely that one relinquishes independent judgement is something else. We might want to, in the name of pragmatism, give in; we could even make the best of this deal in a way that the consequences are not bad. But this is not a triumph. The perfume of official announcements cannot disguise the stench of our own diminishment.