Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

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India and the US are about to announce a Bilateral Trade Agreement [0], which was already in the works during Trump 1. Musk visited Modi yesterday [1] and Vance is traveling to India in the next 2 days [2], so the BTA and sourcing from India is most likely the primary topic of conversation.

The Modi admin has also been cultivating Trump and Stephen Miller adjacent advisors [3][4][5] at the Heritage and Hudson Foundation for a couple years now too, by trying to use Walter Russell Mead the same way Graham Allison acted as a conduit between China and the US.

And besides that, the tariffs remain oriented as a de facto blockade against China, and as long as they remain at a rate above 60-70%, Chinese sourced suppliers remain price uncompetitive.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-us-finalise-terms-...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/musk-says-he-will-visit-...

[2] - https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Van...

[3] - https://indiafoundation.in/event-reports/india-study-tour-of...

[4] - https://x.com/Scholars_Stage/status/1876079122994401438

[5] - https://nationalconservatism.org/natcon-4-2024/

Your arguments come from a place of rationality and observations, without a doubt, but the decisions of material importance are being made by irrational actors. Maybe you’re right, maybe not, too much volatility to say with certainty imho. Might as well play roulette in the current macro. You could literally be in the room where the decision is being made, and I still wouldn’t give high confidence in prediction accuracy, based on observations to this point. You’re reading tea leaves while they’re throwing dice.

On a recent APM Marketplace episode, Kai asked one of his guests to predict how this ends, and their answer was, paraphrasing, “haha are you kidding me? I can’t even tell you what the next 24 hours is going to look like.” [1]

[1] https://pca.st/episode/6ce6c8be-c008-439f-b1a9-dc45cf48c57a?...

Additional citation:

Inside Trump's tariff brain - https://www.axios.com/2025/04/19/inside-trump-mindset-tariff... - April 19th, 2025

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43747737

Oh, this is absolutely the line being sold in New Delhi. It’s immediately abandoned the moment those folks are in Washington, because as much as Miller wants to deal with Modi, Loomer doesn’t and he needs her for natsec and the border.

> tariffs remain oriented as a de facto blockade against China

They’re against imports, period.

> It’s immediately abandoned the moment those folks are in Washington, because as much as Miller wants to deal with Modi, Loomer doesn’t and he needs her for natsec and the border

Pretty much. But I'd still disagree that this kind of lobbying doesn't have value. The UK (Vance), Israel (Kushner but now Trump Jr), and KSA have been working on building similar informal networks with the Trump admin. They can't predict everything but they can at least start understand the inner workings of the admin somewhat.

Ironically, this is similar to how China scholars and India scholars would try to approach power dynamics in both countries as well.

Clearly a severe degradation of our administrative capacity though - there's a reason diplomacy was increasingly formalized after the Gulf of Tonkin incident

> They’re against imports, period

Yep! I meant decoupling.

The same Trump that negotiated the USMCA as a replacement to NAFTA in his first term, only to return and start harassing Mexico and Canada (!) over made-up grievances? Same guy that flip-flops on national policy depending on the weather - that Trump?

We'll see about that.

Difference is neither the Trudeau nor AMLO admin made alliances with Stephen Miller adjacent acolytes, nor cultivated relations with the American (and other Anglo speaking) Right, and overindexed on diplomatic protocol with an administration that subscribes to a personalist protocol.

Even when Trump was not president, countries like India, Israel, KSA, Japan, etc tried keeping informal relations with that sphere, which made negotiating much easier from the start.

You're trying to find a pattern where none exists: so, if Canada did not intentionally cultivate Trump admin. insiders, does that excuse Trump being monstrous to them?

Hell, Denmark loans out Greenland as an unofficial American protectorate and the US retaliates by seeking to just steal their territory, despite their almost insane pro-American bias. To the extent of sending the VP there to challenge Denmark's hold on its sovereign territory?

Again - that's the guy you're reasoning with?

That's before you factor in the American Right's virulent hatred for Indians, who they see as parasitic, simply for coming to work in the US on H1Bs. I hope it works out perfectly for all parties involved.

> if Canada did not intentionally cultivate Trump admin. insiders, does that excuse Trump being monstrous to them

Absolutely not. The Trump admin is treating some of our closest allies horribly. That said, there was no reason not to prepare and cultivate relations in case a second Trump admin was formed.

> American Right's virulent hatred for Indians, who they see as parasitic, simply for coming to work in the US on H1Bs

Visas don't matter for the Indian right either (the National Conservative movement). It sucks horribly for the Indian diaspora, but they can't vote in Indian elections so they don't matter to Indian policymakers.

To understand how Trump or Orban or Modi administrations work and think, we need to deep dive into their own ideology (and lack of ideology). Understanding the Stephen Millers, George Birnbaums, and Amit Shahs is critical to understanding the administrations they manage.

I love that: "personalist protocol". What an anodyne way to describe a kakistocracy.

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