India has stopped exports before in response to domestic need. Onions in recent years[1], and also COVID vaccines in response to its devastating 2021 second wave, after it spent 2020 doing rounds of “vaccine diplomacy” where it assured countries it could help with their COVID vaccine needs. India is usually the world’s largest vaccine exporter, but its 2021 2nd wave led to this policy being put on hold as once again, exports were blocked[2].

Actions like these are not new or surprising because India’s economy is quite price sensitive and the government in response likes to micro-manage in the face of rising prices, but it does mean you’ve to take these sound bites to foreign leaders with a grain of salt. Very often these are actually intended for people at home to push the message of “see how much good we’re doing in the world?”

None of this is intended to be disparaging or specific to India, a lot of this applies to other countries as well.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/bangladesh-india-onion-idUSK...

[2] https://www.thecambridgeglobalaffair.co.uk/collaborators/wha...