Trump's mercantilism? Post-Cold War reshaping of the politics and Economy of India in South Asia

सार

The current global shifts in the economic sphere, with the imposition of tariff duties by the USA on some countries, especially India in South Asia, can bring about a lot of changes in the international political economy. The dependency in trade and commerce in this neo-colonialist order is from both sides. It's actually a zero-sum game, which attracts the strong states towards weaker ones. This paper dives into certain important questions:

Is it really going back towards the mercantilist approach of the state by adopting protectionist measures, or is it just a way to assert power in the post-Cold War period by impacting global supply chains? What are the impacts on the South Asian countries, especially India (domestically or internationally), as most of them are the suppliers of finished products to the USA?

The application of secondary tariffs on countries like India to stop them from importing Russian oil is one of the reasons given by the USA. This paper uses the current trends in growth of an economy, followed by political ideas behind it and how this decision can impact the major political decisions in future, such as bilateral meetings, trade agreements and deepening the structural inequality in the economy. How a country like India will react to it, if the tariff policy is not revised, can shatter the domestic market through demand and supply, and this will create greater problems for the people. This paper will also analyze whether India is truly an emerging power in the world and a major power in South Asia, or if this tariff policy has the capacity to take this title from it. Will this economic change have an impact on the regime or the political system of the country? How does the media is shaping this issue in the eyes of its people are the two points on which the conclusion and prospects are built? The economy doesn't operate in a vacuum: politics shape it, whether we talk about mercantilist theory, fall apart due to economic liberalism or capitalist ideas criticized by Marxian understanding.

As Francis Fukuyama said The End of History on liberal ideology with the end of the Cold War, so is it really the end of history on liberal ideas, or is the world order evolving into something new? This is now a critical question to understand.

Keywords: tariff duties, mercantilist, secondary tariffs, End of history, South Asia, liberal ideas