India has informed the U.S. that it is no longer considering the acquisition of F-35 fighter jets after the declaration of a 25% tariff on Indian products.
Bloomberg reported that the Indian officials’ disappointment over President Trump’s declaration of tariffs on Indian products at 25% has led to the talks on a possible F-35A fighter acquisition being axed in favour of an alternative within the scope of the Make in India initiative.
While the U.S. and, by extension, the Trump Administration have been interested in selling India F-35s, the combined impact of India’s distancing towards ready-from-shelf acquisitions and the recent tariffs has led to the axing.
However, this should be taken as something beyond the rejection of the F-35s’ acquisition. This stance is likely to apply to any U.S.-made defence equipment without India’s industrial involvement. It should be noted that the U.S. has been a critical supplier of equipment and components to India.
Despite India moving away from readily available imports in defence, a good portion of its indigenous development projects have rather questionable success, such as TAPAS-201 UCAV getting shelved in favour of MQ-9B UCAV and engine delivery issues in Tejas fighters’ production.
In this case, India might move towards deeper cooperation with France, which is also not very happy with Trump’s scattering of tariffs and is another important defence partner.
Deepening cooperation with Russia (or rather re-deepening) is also an option, but a weak possibility considering the ongoing war and the risk of the U.S. going from harder tariffs to straightforward sanctions. Even though the U.S. was silent about India’s acquisition of S-400 air defence systems, the heat from the tariff dispute does not guarantee that this attitude will continue.
Author: Kaan Azman
Editor:Özgür Ekşi
