Peter Lewis: Asia Business Correspondent on India’s reaction to US President Trump's ‘dead economy’ comment

US President Donald Trump has called India a country with a ‘dead economy.’ 

Despite India being one of the largest and fastest growing economies in the world, Trump lumped India in with Russia when criticising their economies. 

Asia business correspondent Peter Lewis says that Donald Trump’s comments could affect the two countries’ trade.  

He told Heather duPlessis-Allan that ‘It’s rather upended the relationship’  

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
follow this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio.
Heather do for Sea Ala.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Peter Lewis, Asia Business correspondent with US. Hey Peter, Hello, Heather, Right,
what's India heck to say?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Then, well, they're not happy as you can imagine. Donald
Trump described them as being a dead economy. He buckets
in them along with Russia. He said, both dead economies
can go down together. As far as he's concerns, it's
rather upended the relationship, first of all, because it's not
at least not true. I mean, if you look at

(00:44):
India's economic growth rates, it's one of the fastest in
the world. It's back to twenty twenty three. A couple
of years ago, it was growing over ninety percent right now.
Last year it grew about six and a half percent,
probably going to do the same again this year. So
it is one of the most sort of vitalized economies

(01:06):
in the world. And as the Central Bank governor pointed out,
India contributes about eighteen percent of global growth compared to
just eleven percent for the US. So it's doing very
very well at the moment. And in fact that this time.
We've seen these growth spurts in India before, and they

(01:26):
sometimes haven't really lasted, but this one is definitely lasting
because it is being accompanied by some quite major reforms
that are going on in the country to try and
open up various sectors for more foreign competition by trying
to do things that are helping ease the burden on
Indian families, make it easier for Indian children to get

(01:50):
educated and to go to college. So there's been some
very major reforms, but none of that is enough for
Donald Trump, apparently. And this is a real turnaround from
where we were just a couple of weeks ago, where
Trump was describing Mody as a true friend and Mody thought,
in turn, he had a strong ally in Donald Trump.

(02:12):
And what this is doing is it's turning the Indian
all the political parties in India against Trump. They are
really uniting and condemning what they see is economic bullying
by the US government. And also the people of India
also are very much united against this as well. They
simply do not want to face this sort of economic coersion.

(02:35):
So we're seeing really some of the long term consequences
of the way in which Trump throws tariffs around. He
uses them not just for trade purposes, but he uses
them to bully countries for economic coercion against countries for
political purposes. And look what it's doing with Brazil, fifty
percent tariffs on Brazil because the former president there, who

(03:00):
is a friend of Trump's, has been indicted under their
legal system. So we're seeing here in broad daylight the
long term consequences of the way in which Trump is
conducting his economic policies and his trade policies around the world.
And it's forcing countries like India and China and Brazil together.

(03:22):
So the very thing Trump doesn't want, which is he
doesn't want a United Bricks, he doesn't want countries getting
closer to China. That's exactly what's happening. It looks like
Modi now is going to make his first visit to
China in nine years as a result of this.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
What do you make of the fact that stat out
of Japan that it recorded a million more deaths than
births last year.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, this is something that's been going on for a while,
over a decade now, and it's not just Japan. Although Japan,
i think has probably got the worst demographics in the world.
But it's also happening in China, it's happening in South Korea.
And the problem is young people are not getting married

(04:06):
in the first place, partly because it's two expensive. Young
people are living at home till much much longer, sometimes
in their thirties, even in their forties in some cases,
and then they're not getting married and they're not having
children a game, partly because of the costs of having children,
and also the fact that in Japan until very recently,

(04:28):
it was very hard to get any sort of government
support for childcare to help women back into the workplace
after they've had children, providing support for children, preschool education
and things like that. So they make it very difficult
for young people to get married and have children, and

(04:50):
they're simply just reflecting in many ways the economics of
doing that.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Peter, it's good to talk to you. We'll talk to
again next week. You have yourself a lovely weekend. That's
Peter Lewis our Asia Business correspondent.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
For more from news Talks, they'd be listen live on
air or online and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio