“Trump's shadow looms large over BRICS as Modi hosts Putin and Xi in Delhi.” The BBC ran this headline on September 11, just a day before the summit officially opened in New Delhi. Before the declaration was signed, before the leaders sat down to negotiate a consensus, Washington had already entered the story without being invited. BRICS leaders unanimously adopted the New Delhi Declaration on the first day of the summit. Illustration by The Geostrata Within days, Russia was

The United States leverages its “centrality” within global financial networks, particularly through the dominance of the US dollar and its influence over institutions such as SWIFT, to exert coercive economic pressure on other states. US sanctions policy has increasingly shifted from traditional trade embargoes toward targeted and secondary sanctions, extending pressure to non-sanctioned states and entities maintaining commercial or financial relations with sanctioned countri

For Mongolia, geography does not just act as a hindrance to its foreign policy. In fact, geography is where foreign policy begins, since the country lies between Russia and China and therefore has to engage both countries diplomatically. Yet closer engagement with either also carries the risk of dependence. Mongolia’s response has traditionally been to balance its two neighbours while cultivating a network of “Third Neighbours” beyond its immediate geography. Recent developme

Think of CBAM as a carbon toll booth at Europe’s border. It applies a carbon tax to certain goods imported into the EU, ensuring that imported goods, particularly those at the greatest risk of carbon leakage, face similar carbon-related costs to those produced within the EU. The framework works in two steps. First, EU importers must measure and report the carbon emissions embedded in the goods they bring in. Then, from January 2026, they will be required to pay. Illustration

"Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat." — Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines (1981) Food is no longer viewed merely as an agricultural commodity and has evolved far beyond its conventional role. It increasingly represents political legitimacy, economic resilience, and national security in an era marked by growing geopolitical rivalries, climate-induced production shocks,

Throughout history, geography has influenced the fate of empires. For many centuries, lands that lack coasts have been described as landlocked or held captive to the land due to the need to pay tolls to pass through the territory of their neighbour country to access an ocean to use for shipping goods out of their country. The depiction of landlocked territories as prisoners or land-bound will soon change in the near future; when the new Silk Road is completed in April 2026, t

India has one of the world’s largest foreign exchange reserve stockpiles as of January 2026, with an average of around $723.8 billion . This level of adequacy placed India in a relatively secure position compared to other emerging markets. Despite such large reserves, due to their utilisation, reserve levels were still relatively robust in mid-March 2026, about $709.76 billion , despite the extent of intervention by the RBI itself. Illustration by The Geostrata Here, the RB

"Somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems, but the world's problems are not Europe's problems” Dr S. Jaishankar (Indian External Affairs Minister) The world today has been confronted with the strange reality of trade protectionism and aggressive tariff policies, which stem from the thought of intrinsic economic development amongst multiple countries, starting with the US. What was earlier seen as protectionism and reignit

As the first month of 2026 comes to a close, the global economic establishment is less a coherent system and more a fragmented mirror of competing interests. With the EU – India summit less than a week away, the atmosphere is charged with unprecedented urgency. As the EU President Ursula von der Leyen touches down in India alongside other European leaders for Republic Day celebrations on January 26, the long-anticipated India – EU trade deal stands on the precipice of finaliz

India's trade policy since independence has been rooted in self-sufficiency and protectionism, which makes India's trade remarkably different. The first three and a half decades after independence were governed by very high tariffs, tight import restrictions, and a complex 'licence raj' system to encourage young Indian industries, while protecting many sectors. Illustration by The Geostrata This self-sufficiency encouraged domestic manufacturing, but at the same time, it ha

For over a decade, Pakistan has enjoyed one of the more generous trade arrangements the European Union offers any developing country. The GSP+ scheme, which grants zero-tariff access for roughly two-thirds of EU tariff lines, was never meant to be an unconditional gift. It was designed as an incentive structure: preferential access in exchange for the ratification and, crucially, the effective implementation of twenty-seven international conventions covering human rights, lab

The Hindu epic Mahabharata is far more than just an epic poem featuring noble ideals, supernatural characters, and atrocious conflicts that end in a manufactured peace. It's not a moral and theological discourse built around a long story, as many academics would have us believe; it stands for the very contemporary notions of policy and diplomatic tactics that we see in the world today, and its lessons echo through our administrative institutions. Illustration by The Geostrata

Trade conversations between the United States and India often focus on tariffs and technicalities, but the two giant trading partners share a much larger concern . This is especially true in agriculture. Illustration by The Geostrata The US relies on large, export-oriented farms, whereas India’s agricultural sector is composed of millions of small farmers who require steady prices to survive. What looks like a policy conversation on paper becomes an argument about defending t

The governments of India and the United Kingdom announced a landmark Free Trade Agreement with symmetry on 6 May 2025 and formally signed this agreement on 24 July 2025. Throughout this process, India’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) played a critical and often informal role in providing strategic coordination, direction, and oversight to the international significance of this event. Illustration by The Geostrata By illuminating the PMO’s role, we gain insight into how the hig

When we talk about Pakistan, trade is not what we immediately think of; well, it comes naturally that the country is rather infamous for being enrolled in an economic crisis, surviving on loans and handouts by the IMF and its ‘AAKA’s from the Persian Gulf. Illustration by The Geostrata Rather than exporting goods and services, they export terrorism across the world. If we take a close look at their trade books, we can see that their aggregate annual exports stand at $ 36.5 bi

Under the multifaceted networks of economic safety, cross-connections that exceed traditional supply-chain models can be found in complex geotechnical, technological, and financial networks that redesign the business at a distant level. Illustration by The Geostrata Mapping these constellations of conflict and the relative permanence of ProKin, researchers shed light on the interdependence and dependence of risk and opportunity inherent in interlinkages of semiconductor sup

The People's Republic of China, founded in 1949, has always had a thirst for power and dominance. In the beginning, while it was protecting and conquering lands, it left the coasts unguarded. A brutal mistake to commit. Illustration by The Geostrata It was only in the late 1970s that Deng Xiaoping's reforms transformed the coast into China’s economic engine. Exports and the presence of ports tied China’s survival to maritime security. Yet, by the 1990s, clashes in the South C

The GST Council, the Finance Commission, and the Ministry of Finance are the three pillars of fiscal governance of the Indian economy....

In 2018 , the United States initiated a Section 301 investigation, exposing China’s allegedly discriminatory and unreasonable trade...

When Brahma Chellaney coined the term “debt-trap diplomacy”, explaining how China deliberately lends huge amounts of money to financially...