India’s position on Russian crude imports remains the elephant in the room which Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said he had no knowledge of when asked about the US President’s executive order stating that America could reimpose the penal tariff of 25% if India bought oil from Russia.Indeed, Goyal was attempting the impossible by trying to push this elephant out of his room when he said that the Ministry of External Affairs would know about the Russian oil imports and that the issue did not come up in his trade negotiations with the US.The foreign secretary Vikram Misri also chose ambiguity when asked what India’s position would be on Russian crude imports. Would India have an independent energy policy? Misri said India would maintain “multiple sources of energy and diversify them to ensure stability, with national interest guiding all purchases.” This does not answer whether Russian crude – 37% of India’s total oil imports in recent years – will be brought down to zero.Both Piyush Goyal and Vikram Misri did not give clarity on Russian oil imports. Former finance secretary, Subhash Garg, told The Wire that the Modi government was making a mockery of the principle of collective cabinet responsibility. No one in the government is clearly responding to Trump’s executive order stating that the penal tariff of 25% will be back if India purchases Russian crude.Prime Minister Narendra Modi of course has made a habit of running away from difficult questions, within and outside parliament.It seems apparent that Trump’s executive order seeking to rein in India’s autonomous energy policy came as a surprise to PM Modi. Surely, if the PM had known that such an order would be released after the joint India-US statement on the interim trade agreement, Modi may not have excitedly posted on X about the breakthrough achieved with his “friend” Trump.The problem with Modi and his cheerleading cabinet members is premature celebration of promises made by Trump. The commerce minister claimed that India had got a much better deal than the other nations. Soon Trump announced a deal with Bangladesh in which he offered zero duty textile and garment exports to Bangladesh if it imported cotton yarn and man-made fibre from the US.Trump cleverly embedded the US in Bangladesh’s supply chain. Now Bangladesh, already more competitive globally than Indian textiles, will have an advantage of 18% over India in the US market.The moral of the story is that one should assume permanent instability in all dealings with Trump and be prepared for alternative strategies and options all the time.Clearly, the Indo-US interim trade deal resembles a house of cards and India cannot possibly adopt a long term industrial policy regime based on commitments by Trump. The commerce minister could not even get any reasonable assurance on the H1B visa regime for Indians seeking work in the US. When asked whether India raised the visa issue, he said H1B had lost its significance! A stable visa regime has been India’s biggest demand in all comprehensive trade negotiations.Piyush Goyal tried to justify India’s intention to buy $500 billion worth of goods in sectors such as energy, aircrafts, agriculture, coking coal, etc. on the ground that India and US are natural partners in AI and high tech and there is a potential for $1.3 trillion of ICT (information ,communication, technology) purchases over next five years. But how can India commit to obtaining all ICT imports from just one source? Strategic autonomy is clearly linked to engaging with diverse sources of technology. AI is such a dynamic sector that India may have to potentially do a lot of business with EU, Japan and China which is at the cutting edge of open AI applications.There is something fundamentally wrong with the idea of hitching one’s fortune to just one country for the foreseeable future.Also, on what basis is Piyush Goyal committing that India would potentially buy $1.3 trillion worth of ICT items from the US? Much of these imports will be done by the private sector.How can governments commit such purchases on behalf of the private sector?The private sector may find a lot of tech imports much more viable from China, Japan or EU in the future.It is already becoming clear that open AI application models are being developed in China at one-fifth the costs in the US. Fifth generation fighter aircrafts in Russia are less than half the cost of such equipment in the US. More crucially, India should leverage the data of its 1.4 billion people very carefully without giving in to pressures from Trump. As Rahul Gandhi suggested in his Lok Sabha address, the data relating to India’s growing consumer market is so precious that the world would do anything to get access to it. In this respect, why make any exclusive commitment to the US? Generally, it would be absurd and unwise to make omnibus commitments in the tech sector for the next five to 10 years.This is precisely what the interim Indo-US deal seeks to do. It is still not late to drastically review the interim agreement. And, a final plea to PM Modi – no premature celebrations please!