‘India’s tariff levels by themselves are not the main problem’: An Interview with Ambassador Mohan Kumar

India’s recent trade policy postures — especially around tariff levels — have attracted considerable international attention and criticism, often with the label “tariff king” being used to frame India as unusually protectionist. In his August 2025 Newsweek opinion article, “Is India a ‘Tariff King’? Not Really,” Ambassador Mohan Kumar challenges that narrative by placing India’s tariff structure in historical, structural, and comparative perspective.

He notes that India’s simple average tariff (c. 15.98 %) may appear high, but more policy‑relevant is the trade‑weighted applied tariff, which he cites as around 4.6 % — a level more consistent with norms for developing economies. He further argues that India’s relatively elevated duties in sectors such as agriculture, dairy, and automobiles cannot be understood via a generic “high tariff” label alone — instead, they must be seen as tools of domestic protection and fiscal revenue sustenance in an economy with deep structural challenges and social imperatives.

Given India’s sensitive agricultural sector (with a large share of population reliant on smallholding farms) and the political constraints on trade liberalization, Kumar contends that sweeping critiques reduce complex development trade‑offs into caricatures. In this interview, the ISDP’s Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo‑Pacific Affairs (SCSA‑IPA) seeks to explore the assumptions behind India’s trade policy, ask how India balances its WTO obligations with domestic priorities, and assess whether external critiques of Indian protectionism are factually grounded or driven by political interests. Ambassador Dr. Mohan Kumar is a former Indian Ambassador to France and Bahrain. He was also India’s lead negotiator at first the GATT and then the WTO for close to a decade in the nineties. He is currently the Dean and Professor of Diplomatic Practice at OP Jindal Global University in India. His website: www.ambmokumar.com has more details.