India, July 8 -- When President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on April 2, he marked the end of an era in global trade where the US was both a vanguard of the rules-based multilateral trade order and the largest market for many exporters. This arrangement did not just help exporters, the US too had access to cheap goods. Before the tariffs could kick in, Trump put them on hold till July 9 during which period bilateral deals were to be negotiated on terms beneficial to the US.

A day before the deadline was supposed to expire, the US announced almost identical tariffs on 14 countries - they range from Japan to Myanmar in economic importance and India is yet to get a "letter" - and threatened significant additional tariffs in cas...