Former US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo has criticised President Donald Trump’s foreign and trade policies, warning that Washington is “making a big mistake with India” and alienating key global allies through an isolationist approach.Speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics during a conversation, named ‘Industrial Policy and Economic Security,’ with former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, Raimondo said the Trump administration’s “America First” strategy had weakened US global influence and eroded long-standing partnerships.
“We’re making a big mistake with India. The Trump administration has pissed off all our allies. America First is one thing. America Alone is a disastrous policy,” Raimondo said.The former Biden administration official argued that America’s current posture risked undermining crucial economic and strategic relationships. “On my list of top 20 things that I would be critical of this administration for is pissing off all of our allies,” she said. “An America that’s not a good friend or partner or ally to Europe, to Japan, is a weak America,” she said.Her remarks come amid rising trade tensions between Washington and New Delhi, after the Trump administration doubled tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent, imposing new duties earlier this year over India’s continued purchase of Russian crude oil, despite repeated US objections.Raimondo urged a recalibration of US diplomacy, stressing that effective global engagement required cooperation, not unilateralism. “I don’t think we can be effective without strong relationships with Europe or much of Southeast Asia,” she added. “And I wish that we would have much stronger commercial relationships with Europe. I think we’re making a big mistake with India,” she said.She also cautioned against what she called American “hubris” in dealing with partners, warning that other nations would not wait for Washington to rebuild ties. “What we’re doing right now is giving the Heisman to the rest of the world,” she said. “If we think they’re going to sit around and wait for us to come back, I worry they won’t. China is right there every day in Europe, in Africa, in Latin America, in Southeast Asia. It’s such hubris by America to say we’re the only ones,” she went on to say. Raimondo further voiced disagreement with both Trump and Joe Biden on the idea of reshoring all manufacturing, saying, “I don’t agree with the idea that we should make everything in America. We don’t have enough labour, it’s not where we have an advantage, and it’s not critical to our national security.”
