The language gives it away. ‘For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,’ railed MAGAwati from Bhu-Rajnitik Parivartan Sthal, a.k.a. White House Rose Garden, trading the trademark handbag for a signature red tie. With arguably good reason, but with arguable logic in terms of how to go about correcting bad geopolitical history.
MAGAwati’s logic is pretty straightforward. America makes things. If other countries take a hefty toll in allowing America to sell things in their country, dammit, America will toll back like Quasimodo on steroids, so help Americans, god. So, other countries who also make things – many of them actually make ‘American’ things – will respond by doing one of three things:
1. Lower their hafta on American things being sold in their country so that they become more affordable in these countries. That way, so goes the plan, more of these American things will get made – in America – and sold all over. This approach by other countries is what historians without a clue about trade economics call the ‘Neville Chamberlain’ approach – that a reconciliatory gesture will, by the laws of psychology and psucking up, lead to bonhomie all around.
2. Hike their toll for entry of American things in retaliation to retaliatory tariffs. This could spawn further retaliation from America, followed by another salvo of retaliations from the other country… till, at least logically, America and the other country stop buying and selling each other’s things completely.
3. Work out, as they say in Hindi, separate-separate deals with America and other countries, by which one can trade things not being bought or sold inside the supermarket/home delivery app in shops, kiranas, stalls, mandi… It just means more work, more keeping tabs on who’s trying to skim off the top – a return to the good old days when you exchanged fur and tobacco for rifles and GPU chips.MAGAwati’s trade economics is pure accountancy – money made from selling American things to zero-to-low duty countries must top money lost from high tariffs slapped on American things sold in other countries. Essentially, the model would be MAMA – Make America Marwari Again. (Disclaimer: I flunked my first term accountancy exam in Class 9 by getting a record-breaking 4 out of 100.)But will it work? For America, that is. People in the know-hoo say that this could actually be the push-turned-to-shove that countries like India need to go forth and prosper. Like a top school suddenly saying that the cut-off marks for admission is no longer 75% in board exams but 99% and the ability to turn out Studio Ghibli-style images without using AI. It’ll force students to develop skills that they were happy (read: lazy) not to develop.
This tough love actually sounds good for low-application, high-potential countries like India. Imagine George Fernandes and his pals not having to drive Coca-Cola out of India, but Coca-Cola upping and leaving, so as to bring the genius of Thums Up into the world. And here’s the best thing: once ‘forced’ to ‘sell better, sell more’ in other countries, India-like countries have the option of applying in other ‘schools’, without getting obsessed about Ivy League America.
As for MAGAwati’s gambit – America’s Regular Janes and Joes will find prices of things rising, stock markets getting squeezed… essentially America punching its diminished, and diminishing, weight. Such a Mandalisation will probably confirm what many of us are still in denial about: that America needs all the money it can get these days, its hankering to be ‘great again’ itself an admission that it’s fallen on not-so-great days.
For who else clamours for historical correction and empowerment than those finding themselves, yes, still in the top, but no longer as top as before? And that is the real eye-opener of MAGAwati’s tariff gameshow: the Brahmin Ain’t So Great Anymore.
We just got snapped out of the ‘American dream’.
