US will not give India same economic advantages it gave China, says Trump official

United States Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Thursday said that Washington will not give India the same kind of economic advantages it gave China, which he said allowed Beijing to emerge as a major competitor, Bloomberg reported.

The US wants to work with India to unlock its “limitless potential”, Landau said at the 2026 Raisina Dialogue. However, New Delhi should understand that “we are not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago”, he added.

The Raisina Dialogue is an annual conference held in New Delhi. It is organised by the think-tank Observer Research Foundation in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs.

The US deputy secretary of state had on Monday said that he would be in India to advance US President Donald Trump’s America First policy at the Raisina Dialogue.

The “America First” policy refers to the supposed US-centric trade and foreign measures implemented by the Trump administration. The tariffs imposed by Washington in April 2025 on dozens of countries, including India, were part of these measures.

The levies were eventually reduced once bilateral trade deals had been agreed to with different countries.

With regard to India, the tariffs imposed under Trump’s America First policy were reduced after an interim bilateral trade deal was agreed to on February 2.

Under the framework, US tariffs...

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