Latest / Best of Business / Peter Lewis: Asia Business Correspondent on India’s reaction to US President Trump's ‘dead economy’ comment
Transcript
- 0:09Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
- 0:12Speaker 1: follow this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Heather do for Sea Ala.
- 0:18Speaker 2: Peter Lewis, Asia Business correspondent with US. Hey Peter, Hello, Heather, Right,
- 0:22Speaker 2: what's India heck to say?
- 0:24Speaker 3: Then, well, they're not happy as you can imagine. Donald
- 0:29Speaker 3: Trump described them as being a dead economy. He buckets
- 0:32Speaker 3: in them along with Russia. He said, both dead economies
- 0:35Speaker 3: can go down together. As far as he's concerns, it's
- 0:39Speaker 3: rather upended the relationship, first of all, because it's not
- 0:43Speaker 3: at least not true. I mean, if you look at
- 0:44Speaker 3: India's economic growth rates, it's one of the fastest in
- 0:49Speaker 3: the world. It's back to twenty twenty three. A couple
- 0:52Speaker 3: of years ago, it was growing over ninety percent right now.
- 0:56Speaker 3: Last year it grew about six and a half percent,
- 0:58Speaker 3: probably going to do the same again this year. So
- 1:02Speaker 3: it is one of the most sort of vitalized economies
- 1:06Speaker 3: in the world. And as the Central Bank governor pointed out,
- 1:10Speaker 3: India contributes about eighteen percent of global growth compared to
- 1:15Speaker 3: just eleven percent for the US. So it's doing very
- 1:18Speaker 3: very well at the moment. And in fact that this time.
- 1:22Speaker 3: We've seen these growth spurts in India before, and they
- 1:26Speaker 3: sometimes haven't really lasted, but this one is definitely lasting
- 1:30Speaker 3: because it is being accompanied by some quite major reforms
- 1:34Speaker 3: that are going on in the country to try and
- 1:36Speaker 3: open up various sectors for more foreign competition by trying
- 1:42Speaker 3: to do things that are helping ease the burden on
- 1:45Speaker 3: Indian families, make it easier for Indian children to get
- 1:50Speaker 3: educated and to go to college. So there's been some
- 1:53Speaker 3: very major reforms, but none of that is enough for
- 1:56Speaker 3: Donald Trump, apparently. And this is a real turnaround from
- 2:01Speaker 3: where we were just a couple of weeks ago, where
- 2:04Speaker 3: Trump was describing Mody as a true friend and Mody thought,
- 2:08Speaker 3: in turn, he had a strong ally in Donald Trump.
- 2:12Speaker 3: And what this is doing is it's turning the Indian
- 2:16Speaker 3: all the political parties in India against Trump. They are
- 2:20Speaker 3: really uniting and condemning what they see is economic bullying
- 2:25Speaker 3: by the US government. And also the people of India
- 2:28Speaker 3: also are very much united against this as well. They
- 2:32Speaker 3: simply do not want to face this sort of economic coersion.
- 2:35Speaker 3: So we're seeing really some of the long term consequences
- 2:39Speaker 3: of the way in which Trump throws tariffs around. He
- 2:43Speaker 3: uses them not just for trade purposes, but he uses
- 2:46Speaker 3: them to bully countries for economic coercion against countries for
- 2:51Speaker 3: political purposes. And look what it's doing with Brazil, fifty
- 2:55Speaker 3: percent tariffs on Brazil because the former president there, who
- 3:00Speaker 3: is a friend of Trump's, has been indicted under their
- 3:04Speaker 3: legal system. So we're seeing here in broad daylight the
- 3:08Speaker 3: long term consequences of the way in which Trump is
- 3:12Speaker 3: conducting his economic policies and his trade policies around the world.
- 3:17Speaker 3: And it's forcing countries like India and China and Brazil together.
- 3:22Speaker 3: So the very thing Trump doesn't want, which is he
- 3:25Speaker 3: doesn't want a United Bricks, he doesn't want countries getting
- 3:30Speaker 3: closer to China. That's exactly what's happening. It looks like
- 3:33Speaker 3: Modi now is going to make his first visit to
- 3:36Speaker 3: China in nine years as a result of this.
- 3:40Speaker 2: What do you make of the fact that stat out
- 3:42Speaker 2: of Japan that it recorded a million more deaths than
- 3:44Speaker 2: births last year.
- 3:46Speaker 3: Well, this is something that's been going on for a while,
- 3:50Speaker 3: over a decade now, and it's not just Japan. Although Japan,
- 3:54Speaker 3: i think has probably got the worst demographics in the world.
- 3:58Speaker 3: But it's also happening in China, it's happening in South Korea.
- 4:02Speaker 3: And the problem is young people are not getting married
- 4:06Speaker 3: in the first place, partly because it's two expensive. Young
- 4:09Speaker 3: people are living at home till much much longer, sometimes
- 4:13Speaker 3: in their thirties, even in their forties in some cases,
- 4:17Speaker 3: and then they're not getting married and they're not having
- 4:20Speaker 3: children a game, partly because of the costs of having children,
- 4:24Speaker 3: and also the fact that in Japan until very recently,
- 4:28Speaker 3: it was very hard to get any sort of government
- 4:31Speaker 3: support for childcare to help women back into the workplace
- 4:36Speaker 3: after they've had children, providing support for children, preschool education
- 4:43Speaker 3: and things like that. So they make it very difficult
- 4:47Speaker 3: for young people to get married and have children, and
- 4:50Speaker 3: they're simply just reflecting in many ways the economics of
- 4:55Speaker 3: doing that.
- 4:56Speaker 2: Peter, it's good to talk to you. We'll talk to
- 4:57Speaker 2: again next week. You have yourself a lovely weekend. That's
- 4:59Speaker 2: Peter Lewis our Asia Business correspondent.
- 5:02Speaker 1: For more from news Talks, they'd be listen live on
- 5:05Speaker 1: air or online and keep our shows with you wherever
- 5:08Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio