America will be soft towards China in the trade war, what will be the impact on India?

September 27, 2026

America is considered the biggest power in the world, after that China is known as the second superpower. Chinese President Xi Jinping is on a US visit. The atmosphere changed as soon as Xi Jinping set foot on American soil. Since 1962, no US head of state has personally gone to welcome another head of state on his visit to America. Breaking this tradition, Trump personally went to the airport to welcome Jinping. The first impact of the meeting of the two heads of state is that America will adopt a softer stance in the trade war with China. Remember, earlier America had imposed 100 percent tariff on China and India for buying oil from Russia. The US has currently refrained from imposing additional tariffs on China. Trump stated that these tariffs will not be imposed on China until January 2027. However, China was previously exempted from these tariffs until November 2026, which will now be in effect until January. This does not mean that the additional tariff penalty on India has been postponed; as previously reported, it will remain in place. These two major global powers also have significant influence in the field of artificial intelligence. Now, they have joined hands and pledged to keep artificial intelligence under control. The question arises: what is the secret behind Xi Jinping’s soft approach to China as soon as he arrived in the US? Clearly, if India has a market for demand, China’s population has also recently surpassed India’s. Thus, China also has a large demand market. The US cannot ignore China for several reasons. First, China has so many manufacturing units that the US also needs Chinese goods. If a tariff war were to break out and Chinese supplies were reduced, the American people would have to face inflation, so the US has postponed the trade war for now. Secondly, China’s biggest strength is its monopoly on critical minerals. Now, with its progress, China has also become ahead in their processing. Achieving this is America’s goal if it is to continue its nuclear, security, and space missions. Third, China is the largest source of raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry. India also imports these raw materials from China in large quantities. In view of the midterm elections, the US is compelled to soften its stance with China without creating further difficulties for its people. India’s perspective may be that if US-China trade relations improve, the global supply chain will not be disrupted; it will improve automatically because China will continue to purchase oil from Russia. In this situation, India will benefit from the diversification of oil markets. India’s situation is peculiar; recently, India started purchasing 52 percent of its oil needs from Russia. Now, with the threat of tariff increases, purchases will have to be reduced, even though Russia sells oil to us at discounted rates compared to the United States. Previously, India also purchased oil from Venezuela and Iran. Political constraints have reduced these purchases. Now, if China, a major importer of crude oil like us, does not enter the oil markets to compete with its demand, India will benefit. But India’s oil problem will only be fully resolved when new sources of oil are discovered on our soil.

-Abhishek Vij