In a veiled response to the US President Donald Trump’s decision of tariffs and steep $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that India’s biggest enemy is “dependence on other countries”.

Addressing people at a programme in Gujarat the Prime Minister said that the country does not have a single enemy in the world, except for one.

“Today, India is moving forward with the spirit of ‘Vishwabandhu’. Duniya mein koi hamara bada dushman nahi hai. Agar hamara koi dushman hai toh woh hai dusre deshon par hamari nirbharta (We have no major enemy in the world. Our biggest enemy is our dependence on other countries). This is our biggest enemy, and together we must defeat this enemy of India, the enemy of dependence. We must always reiterate this,” he added, while reiterating on the need of becoming a self-reliant country.

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He said India must become a self-reliant country to stand strong against unilateral decisions of some countries. “India must become Atmanirbhar (self-reliant) and stand strong before the world. India has no shortage of potential, but after independence, Congress ignored all of India’s potential,” he said.

“Therefore, even after 6-7 decades of independence, India has not achieved the success it deserved. There were two major reasons for this. For a long time, the Congress government kept the country entangled in the license-quota raj, isolating it from the world market. And then, when the era of globalisation arrived, the only path to import was taken,” the Prime Minister added.

‘Only one medicine for a hundred sorrows’

Speaking at the ‘Samudra se Samriddhi’ event in Bhavnagar, the Prime Minister highlighted how India has remained dependent for various basic needs on other countries. He said to ensure a stable and prosperous future for the coming generations, India cannot afford to have major foreign dependence.

“The greater the foreign dependence, the greater the country’s failure. For global peace, stability, and prosperity, the country with the world’s largest population must become Atmanirbhar. If we remain dependent on others, our self-respect will be hurt. We cannot leave the future of 1.4 billion countrymen to others,” he said, quoted PTI.

“We cannot leave the resolution for the country’s development to the dependence of others. We cannot put the future of the coming generations at stake,” the PM further said, adding that “there is only one medicine for a hundred sorrows, and that is a self-reliant India”.

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‘Chips or ships, must make them in India’

The Prime Minister said that whether it is semiconductor chips or large ships, Indian has no option but to make them on its own land.

“Apart from being Atmanirbhar, India has no other option. The 140 crore citizens of the country must have a single resolve: whether it’s chip or ship, we must build them in India,” he said.

“The experts present here know that shipbuilding is not an ordinary industry. Globally, the shipbuilding industry is called the ‘mother of all industries.’ It is called the mother of industries because it does not just produce ships; it also drives the growth of associated sectors—steel, machinery, electronics, textiles, paint, IT systems, and many others receive support from the shipping industry. This benefits small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)…” he added.

The Prime Minister mentioned that the country pays around Rs 6 lakh crore annually to foreign firms to ship goods across the world, which, he said, is “almost equal to our defence budget”.

Trump’s new executive order

In a fresh executive order, President Donald Trump announced $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications. He accused companies of abusing the H-1B to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. The order cites rising unemployment among U.S. computer science graduates, mass layoffs tied to H-1B hiring, and even national security risks.

“The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program was created to bring temporary workers into the United States to perform additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor,” the order stated.

“The large-scale replacement of American workers through systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security. Some employers, using practices now widely adopted by entire sectors, have abused the H-1B statute and its regulations to artificially suppress wages, resulting in a disadvantageous labor market for American citizens, while at the same time making it more difficult to attract and retain the highest skilled subset of temporary workers, with the largest impact seen in critical science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields,” it added.