Brazil, India and Other Countries Fight Back Against Trump’s Tariffs

Opinion|Trump Is Teaching the World to Live Without a Hegemon

President Trump has announced 50 percent tariffs on India and Brazil, two of the global south’s largest economies. He wants India to cut ties with Russia, even though dozens of countries maintain similar ties without such steep consequences. And he wants Brazil’s government to drop charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of trying to stage a coup after losing the 2022 election. These tariffs are more than trade measures; they’re tools of political coercion, designed to use economic pain to rewrite other nations’ domestic and foreign policies.

But while Europe, South Korea and Japan have acquiesced to many of Washington’s demands on trade, India and Brazil are charting a different path that could reshape how developing countries resist American pressure. Rather than giving way in submission or panic, they’re pushing back — and buying time to activate alternative partnerships that have been years in the making, a policy political scientists call strategic hedging. It’s a survival strategy that is helping nations fight back against Mr. Trump, but paving the way for a more fragmented and dangerous world.

Washington today sees foreign policy through the lens of ally or adversary. For emerging economies, this is a false choice. Strategic hedging means cultivating multiple, overlapping relationships that prevent overreliance by any single major power. Think of it as a geopolitical version of portfolio strategy: Just as investors spread risk across assets, nations spread dependency across relationships. The goal isn’t self-sufficiency but rather preserving freedom of action. When alternatives exist, no single partner can dictate terms.

Brazil and India have spent decades perfecting this approach. Throughout the 1990s, while Washington was basking in its unipolar moment, they were quietly building other relationships out of deep distrust of American power. They watched the United States abandon negotiations it disliked, exempt itself from international jurisdiction and interpret “rules-based order” to mean “our rules, your compliance.” The lesson wasn’t that America was evil but that even benevolent hegemons eventually abuse their power — and that emerging countries could never afford to be entirely dependent on the United States.

Today these countries seem to feel vindicated in their suspicions of Washington, and justified in hedging their bets.

In the wake of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, Brazilian exporters are accelerating partnerships in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Indian firms are expediting certifications and regulatory clearances for an array of products in markets around the world. Both nations’ governments are reviving their quest for trade agreements that bypass Washington, a trend that European countries have also embraced in their own efforts to diversify trade away from the United States. These aren’t perfect substitutes for the massive American market, but they’re enough to avoid caving to American demands.