War minus shooting: Role of India in contemporary international trade

International trade right now is bringing back memories of the Cold War. What can be India's role in it?

The Cold War was a period of intense geopolitical tensions between communist countries and Western democracies. That is how some experts are reading today’s international trade scenario, except that the weapons and ammunition are different.

The recent moves by central banks to increase the gold component in their foreign exchange reserves, attempts by countries such as China and India to internationalise their currencies, and the United States’ move to slap tariff hikes on Chinese electric vehicles and other products are accentuating fragmentation of international trade and raising its costs.

“Thus far, today’s fragmentation is not significantly different from the initial years of