New Delhi, March 30 -- The US Trade Representative team's talks in Delhi last week with Indian officials can be seen as part of an effort to find a way to avoid President Donald Trump's tariffs on Indian exports that mirror the burden faced by US goods entering India.

The US and India, once tethered to market debates in a transactional context, now navigate a relationship redefined by supply-chain wars, tech supremacy and containment of China. Their collaboration-and competition-reveals how commerce is being weaponized in the 21st century, with tariffs, sanctions and industrial policy being deployed for strategic ends.

In this milieu, tariffs and retaliatory tariffs are not a zero-sum game; they cause injury all around. In 2019, almond ...