Case for controlling India’s digital future: looking beyond WhatsApp & Meta

If you think Donald Trump’s tariff policies won’t reach your phone, think again. The man who just imposed new levies on everything from electric cars to software could, with a single stroke of a pen, decide that WhatsApp messages from India count as “digital imports”. If that happened, India’s business communications could grind to a halt overnight.

Meta, which owns WhatsApp, would comply immediately. Whether driven by regulation or diplomacy, the company would follow Washington’s lead.