Anand Mahindra Calls for Bold Reforms as Tariff War Sparks Global Reset
- Anand Mahindra urges India to turn the global tariff crisis into an opportunity for transformative reforms, similar to the 1991 liberalisation.
- He advocates for a national single-window clearance system, tourism boost, and enhanced support for MSMEs and manufacturing.
- By ensuring speed, simplicity, and predictability, India can become an irresistible destination for global investment.
In the wake of escalating global tariff tensions, including the United States imposing 50 percent tariffs on Indian goods, industrialist Anand Mahindra has called for India to respond with transformative domestic reforms that turn this challenge into an opportunity for accelerated growth.
Taking to social media platform X, the Chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra said that the 'law of unintended consequences' is already shaping positive shifts in several global economies amid the tariff war unleashed by the US. He pointed to the European Union, where tariff friction has sparked renewed focus on defence and fiscal reforms. “Germany has moderated its fiscal orthodoxy, which may catalyse a resurgence in Europe’s major economies. The world could gain a new engine for growth”, he stated.
Mahindra also cited Canada’s steps to dismantle long-standing internal trade barriers, bringing the country closer to a unified economic market. According to him, both these unintended consequences could become long-term positives for global growth.
He then posed a rhetorical question, “Shouldn’t India too seize this moment to shape a virtuous consequence for itself? Just as the 1991 forex reserves crisis triggered liberalisation, can today’s global ‘Manthan’ over tariffs yield some ‘Amrit’ for us?”
Calling for urgent and radical policy shifts, Mahindra stressed the need to dramatically improve the ease of doing business in India. He advocated going beyond incremental reforms and establishing a genuinely effective single-window clearance system for investments. He suggested forming a coalition of states aligned with a national platform to ensure speed, simplicity, and predictability factors critical to attracting global capital.
Mahindra identified tourism as one of the country’s most underutilized sectors for foreign exchange and employment. He recommended accelerating visa processing, enhancing tourist facilitation, and creating secure, hygienic, and well-managed tourism corridors around key destinations.
He further outlined a broader action agenda, which includes enhanced liquidity and support for MSMEs, increased infrastructure investment, expansion of Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, and rationalisation of import duties especially lowering duties on manufacturing inputs to boost India’s global competitiveness.
Concluding his statement, Mahindra asserted, “Let the unintended consequences we create be the most intentional and transformative ones of all. We cannot fault others for putting their nations first. But we should be moved to make our own nation greater than ever”.
His remarks come at a time when India is reassessing its strategic economic posture amid global supply chain disruptions and a growing emphasis on self-reliance.
