President Trump Hits India With Tariffs

United States President Donald Trump ramped up the tariff rate on goods from India to 50 percent on August 27 in retaliation for India’s decision to continue buying oil from Russia during the Ukraine war.

• The tariff is expected to hurt India’s position as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, yet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not backing down.

India’s junior foreign minister clarified, “Our concern is our energy security, and we will continue to purchase energy sources from whichever country benefits us.”

Geopolitical realignment: For decades, the U.S and India have been in a strategic partnership to contain China. Yet this partnership has been hampered by India’s partnership with Russia, a close friend of Communist China.

President Trump hopes his tariffs will convince India to abandon support for Russia and become a stauncher Western ally. Yet they could have the opposite effect. If India turns against the U.S. and toward Russia, it could strengthen an anti-Western Asian alliance.

Kings of the east: The Bible prophecies that an Asian alliance will arise in the end time, powerful enough to field a 200 million-man army (Revelation 9:16; 16:12). The two most populous nations on Earth are India and China, so these two powers will likely ally against the Western world in the years ahead.

Ezekiel 38 specifies that a man called the “prince of Rosh” will lead an army that includes “Ethiopia, and Libya …” (verse 5). These two names should be translated “Cush” and “Phut.” Although portions of the peoples of Cush and Phut settled in Africa, the rest migrated to India. The context of this prophecy shows that it refers not to African peoples but to a modern-day Asian alliance.

Learn more: Read “India: Asia’s Other Economic Powerhouse.”