Did "all of India's telemarketers" threaten "to go on strike permanently" if the U.S. places increased tariffs on imports from that country? No, that's not true: No media organizations reported that. The viral post that resurfaced at the end of September 2025 appeared to be a joke.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on September 29, 2025. It opened:
🚨BREAKING: All of India's telemarketers are threatening to go on strike permanently if President Trump places tariffs on country.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/akafaceUS)
The claim began to circulate on the internet weeks earlier, on September 7, 2025 (archived here). Since then, however, no credible news organizations have reported anything remotely similar: Searches on Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) produced no such matches.
In August 2025, the Trump administration announced new tariffs on Indian imports that would reach 50% (archived here). As of the end of September 2025, however, the countries continued to be engaged in talks (archived here), aiming at reaching a different trade deal.
