Modi and Starmer Make Pitch for Trade System Fraying Under Trump

India’s Narendra Modi and the UK’s Keir Starmer — two prime ministers on the receiving end of recent waves of US tariffs — made their case this week for preserving the old free trade orthodoxy being challenged by President Donald Trump.

Modi rolled out a lavish welcome for Starmer in Mumbai, raising 5,700 billboards and posters around the Indian financial hub celebrating the trade deal the two men signed in July. The British prime minister, in turn, brought some 126 executives, business representatives and university chiefs, joking that he needed a bigger plane to fit them and urging them ...