Trump tariffs threaten the survival of the centuries-old Kashmiri carpet industry

Mohammad Iqbal Bakshi, left, and Mohammad Rafiq Shah inspect a Kashmiri hand-knotted silk carpet inside a showroom in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 14, 2025. (AP)
Mohammad Iqbal Bakshi, left, and Mohammad Rafiq Shah inspect a Kashmiri hand-knotted silk carpet inside a showroom in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 14, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 17 April 2025
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Trump tariffs threaten the survival of the centuries-old Kashmiri carpet industry

Trump tariffs threaten the survival of the centuries-old Kashmiri carpet industry
  • Carpet exports from India to the United States are valued at approximately $1.2 billion
  • The steep 28 percent tariff means these carpets will become more expensive in the US market

SRINAGAR: Mohammad Yousuf Dar and his wife, Shameema, sit cross-legged before their loom, deftly tying consecutive knots to create the floral patterns of the famed Kashmiri carpets that are now threatened by the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs.
Genuine hand-knotted Kashmiri carpets are typically made from pure silk, and sometimes pure wool, which is more challenging. Generations of artisans have for centuries handed down the craft to ensure its survival, and while the carpets are sold for quite a sum, most craftspeople can barely make ends meet.
“I just help my husband so that we have a modicum of decent income to run our household,” Shameema, 43, said as she and Mohamad rhythmically plucked at the colorful silk threads in their dimly lit workshop in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar. They periodically glance at a yellowed scrap of paper, known as Taleem, or instructions, showcasing the pattern they are working on in an ancient shorthand of symbols and numbers and a cryptic color map.
Both learned the craft at the ages of 9 and 10, respectively.
The industry has survived decades of conflict over the disputed region between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan and withstood the fickleness of fashion to stay in demand, adorning mansions and museums alike.
However, Kashmiri traders say that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on American imports can deal a hard blow to an already threatened business that is vying to survive amid mass-produced carpets, which are less costly, and artisans abandoning the industry.
Although the tariffs were primarily aimed at major exporters like China, they’ve inadvertently ensnared traditional handicraft industries from regions like Kashmir, which depend on US and European markets for survival.
Carpet exports from India to the US alone are valued at approximately $1.2 billion, out of a total global export value of $2 billion, according to official data.
Mohamad, 50, said he is the only weaver left out of over 100 who shifted to other jobs some two decades back in his neighborhood in Srinagar city’s old downtown.
“I spend months knotting a single rug,” he said, “but if there is no demand, our skills feel worthless,” he added.
Still, thousands of families in Kashmir rely on this craft for their livelihood and the steep 28 percent tariff imposed means the imported carpets will become significantly more expensive for American consumers and retailers.
“If these carpets are going to be more expensive in America, does that mean our wages will rise too?” Mohamad asked.
Not likely.
The increased cost to consumers in the US doesn’t translate into higher wages for weavers, experts say, but rather often leads to reduced orders, lower incomes, and growing uncertainty for the artisans.
This price hike could also push buyers toward cheaper, machine-made alternatives, leaving Kashmiri artisans in the lurch.
Insiders say that unless international trade policies shift to protect traditional industries, Kashmir’s hand-knotted legacy may continue to fray until it disappears.
Wilayat Ali, a Kashmiri carpet supplier, said his trading partner, who exports the carpets to the US, Germany and France, has already canceled at least a dozen orders already in the making.
“The exporter also returned some dozen carpets,” he said.
“It boils down to the hard arithmetic of profit and loss,” Ali explained. “They don’t see thousands of knots in a carpet that takes months to make.”
 


Congo votes to lift immunity of former president Kabila

Updated 5 sec ago
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Congo votes to lift immunity of former president Kabila

Congo votes to lift immunity of former president Kabila
Congo’s senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of lifting former President Joseph Kabila’s immunity from prosecution in a late night vote on Thursday over his alleged links to the M23 rebel group.
Kabila is wanted in Congo for alleged crimes against humanity for supporting the insurgency in the east, including a role in the massacre of civilians and personnel. Congo has also moved to suspend his political party and seize the assets of its leaders.
Kabila, who denies any ties to the rebel group, stepped down after almost 20 years in power in 2018, yielding to protests. He has been out of the Central African country since late 2023, mostly in South Africa.
The senate backed lifting his immunity by 88 votes to 5 in a secret ballot.
Kabila has been threatening to return to Congo for weeks to help find a solution to the crisis in the east, where Rwandan-backed M23 rebels now control large swathes of territory.
A return to Congo by Kabila could complicate the bid to end the rebellion in eastern Congo, which contains vast supplies of critical minerals that President Donald Trump’s administration is keen to access.
Washington is pushing for a peace agreement between the two sides to be signed this summer, accompanied by minerals deals aimed at bringing billions of dollars of Western investment to the region, Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for Africa, told Reuters earlier this month.
Kabila came to power in 2001 after his father’s assassination. He refused to stand down when his final term officially ended in 2016, leading to deadly protests, before agreeing to leave office following an election in 2018.

Bangladesh minister says Yunus ‘not going to step down’

Bangladesh minister says Yunus ‘not going to step down’
Updated 2 min 58 sec ago
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Bangladesh minister says Yunus ‘not going to step down’

Bangladesh minister says Yunus ‘not going to step down’
  • Muhammad Yunus had threatened to quit the job if parties did not give him their backing
  • Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest, but supporters of the BNP demanded he fix a date

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus “needs to remain” in office as interim leader to ensure a peaceful transition of power, a cabinet member and special adviser to Yunus said Friday.

Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after a mass uprising last year, had threatened to quit the job if parties did not give him their backing, a political ally and sources in his office said.

The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that toppled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, with parties protesting on the streets over a string of demands.

“For the sake of Bangladesh and a peaceful democratic transition, Professor Yunus needs to remain in office,” Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a special assistant to Yunus, and head of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, said in a post on Facebook.

“The Chief Adviser is not going to step down,” he added. “He does not hanker after power.”

Bangladesh’s political crisis has escalated this week, with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.

Yunus’s reported threat to stand down came after thousands of supporters of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rallied in Dhaka on Wednesday, holding large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time.

Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest, but supporters of the BNP — seen as the front-runners in highly anticipated elections that will be the first since Hasina was overthrown — demanded he fix a date.

Yunus’s relationship with the military has also reportedly deteriorated.

According to local media and military sources, powerful army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said on Wednesday that elections should be held by December.

Taiyeb issued a warning to the army on Friday.

“The army can’t meddle in politics,” he wrote.

“The army doesn’t do that in any civilized country,” he added.

“By saying that the election has to be held by December, the military chief failed to maintain his jurisdictional correctness.”


UK newspaper The Telegraph set for US ownership

UK newspaper The Telegraph set for US ownership
Updated 31 min 10 sec ago
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UK newspaper The Telegraph set for US ownership

UK newspaper The Telegraph set for US ownership

LONDON: British right-wing newspaper The Telegraph has agreed a deal that would see it purchased by US investment group RedBird Capital Partners for £500 million ($670 million), the pair announced Friday.
RedBird has struck an “in-principle agreement” to purchase The Telegraph Media Group (TMG), which comprises the 170-year-old paper’s print and online operations, a joint statement said.
It concludes a protracted sale lasting around two years, which has involved an intervention by the previous Conservative government.
US-Emirati consortium RedBird IMI had already struck a deal for TMG in late 2023.
However, the previous UK government triggered a swift resale amid concern over the potential impact on freedom of speech given Abu Dhabi’s press censorship record.
RedBird Capital Partners on Friday said the agreement struck with TMG makes it “the sole control owner” and “unlocks a new era of growth for the title” founded in 1855.
“RedBird’s growth strategy will include capital investment in digital operations, subscriptions and journalism as it looks to expand The Telegraph internationally.”
The US group added it is in “discussions with select UK-based minority investors with print media expertise and strong commitment to upholding the editorial values of The Telegraph.”


South Sudan refugees in Ethiopia face imminent ‘health catastrophe’

South Sudan refugees in Ethiopia face imminent ‘health catastrophe’
Updated 33 min 47 sec ago
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South Sudan refugees in Ethiopia face imminent ‘health catastrophe’

South Sudan refugees in Ethiopia face imminent ‘health catastrophe’
  • A power-sharing agreement between the warring parties provided a fragile calm
  • The NGO also announced that it had moved its medical services from the Ethiopian border town of Burbeiye to the more distant Mattar

ADDIS ABABA: South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia face an imminent “health catastrophe,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Friday, citing a cholera epidemic and cases of severe acute malnutrition.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country after gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, was plunged into a violent civil war between 2013 and 2018 that claimed around 400,000 lives.
A power-sharing agreement between the warring parties provided a fragile calm, but it has all but collapsed as violent clashes have broken out between forces allied to President Salva Kiir and his long-time rival, First Vice President Riek Machar, who was put under house arrest in March.
According to MSF, 35,000 to 85,000 South Sudanese refugees have fled to Mattar, an Ethiopian town near the border with South Sudan.
“The local infrastructure is stretched beyond capacity,” the NGO said in a statement, adding that “with the resurgence of waterborne diseases such as cholera and acute watery diarrhea, the risk of a health disaster is imminent.”
MSF said it had treated around 1,200 patients with cholera, a disease that can be fatal in 10-20 percent of cases.
“Over 40 percent of malaria rapid diagnostic tests have returned positive, and nearly 7 percent of children under five show signs of severe acute malnutrition,” MSF added.
The NGO also announced that it had moved its medical services from the Ethiopian border town of Burbeiye to the more distant Mattar due to armed clashes between “the South Sudanese army and an opposition group” along the border.
It has received more than 200 people with “war injuries” in Burbeiye since the fighting began in February, it said.
MSF urged the various parties to the conflict in South Sudan to “ensure a safe humanitarian space and protect civilians and aid workers alike,” and called on international donors to scale up assistance particularly in Mattar “where shelter, water and medical care are in too low supply for people who have fled horrific violence.”


Taliban in talks with Russia, China for trade transactions in local currencies

Taliban in talks with Russia, China for trade transactions in local currencies
Updated 56 min 4 sec ago
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Taliban in talks with Russia, China for trade transactions in local currencies

Taliban in talks with Russia, China for trade transactions in local currencies
  • Annual bilateral trade between Russia and Afghanistan is currently around $300 million
  • Afghanistan’s financial sector has been largely cut off from the global banking system due to sanctions

KABUL: The Taliban administration is in advanced talks with Russia for banks from both sanctions-hit economies to settle trade transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars in their local currencies, Afghanistan’s acting commerce minister said.

The Afghan government has made similar proposals to China, the minister, Hajji Nooruddin Azizi, told Reuters on Thursday. Some discussions have been held with the Chinese embassy in Kabul, he said.

The proposal with Russia, Azizi said, was being worked on by technical teams from the two countries. The move comes as Moscow focuses on using national currencies to shift reliance away from the dollar and as Afghanistan faces a stark drop in the US currency entering the country due to aid cuts.

“We are currently engaged in specialized discussions on this matter, considering the regional and global economic perspectives, sanctions, and the challenges Afghanistan is currently facing, as well as those Russia is dealing with. Technical discussions are underway,” Azizi said in an interview at his office in Kabul.

The Chinese foreign ministry and the Russian central bank did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Azizi added that annual bilateral trade between Russia and Afghanistan was currently around $300 million and that was likely to grow substantially as the two sides boost investment. His administration expected Afghanistan to buy more petroleum products and plastics from Russia, he said.

“I am confident that this is a very good option...we can use this option for benefit and interests of our people and our country,’ Azizi said.

“We want to take steps in this area with China as well,” he said, adding Afghanistan had around $1 billion in trade with China each year. “A working team composed of members from the (Afghan) Ministry of Commerce and the Chinese embassy which is an authorized body representing China in economic programs has been formed, and talks are ongoing.”

Afghanistan’s financial sector has been largely cut off from the global banking system due to sanctions placed on some leaders of the ruling Taliban, which took over the country in 2021 as foreign forces withdrew.

Rivalry with China and fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine have put the dollar’s status as the world’s dominant currency under fresh scrutiny in recent years. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the need to hold state reserves in foreign currencies since they could easily be confiscated for political reasons, saying that domestic investment of such reserves was more attractive.

The dollar has had a lock on commodity trading, allowing Washington to hinder market access for producer nations from Russia to Venezuela and Iran.

Afghanistan since 2022 has imported gas, oil and wheat from Russia, the first major economic deal after the Taliban returned to power facing international isolation following 20 years of war against US-led forces.

Billions of dollars in cuts to aid to Afghanistan, accelerated this year by the United States, have meant far fewer dollars, which are flown in cash for humanitarian operations, are entering the country.

Development agencies and economists say the Afghani currency has so far remained relatively stable but may face challenges in future.

Azizi said that the stability of the currency and his administration’s efforts to boost international investment including with the Afghan diaspora, would prevent a shortage of US dollars in the country.