“The world has fundamentally changed. There’s no two ways about it. What happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall gave us 25 years of American supremacy and globalisation, and President Trump is clearly reversing that,” he said.
According to Chokhani, global supply chains are moving away from efficiency towards resilience. “There’s no more globalisation. We don’t want just-in-time. We want resilient supply chains, near-shoring, friend-shoring and on-shoring,” he said. This shift, he added, has created bottlenecks and pushed the world into a more inflationary environment, driving interest in hard assets such as gold and silver, while younger investors look at alternatives like Bitcoin.Trade deal uncertainty and a long timeline
On the US-India trade deal, Chokhani cautioned against expecting quick resolutions. “No one can predict when a trade deal will be signed. Even the man who has to sign it might change his mind tomorrow morning,” he said.
He said the worst-case scenario is a prolonged delay. “Worst case, Trump’s term has three years more, that’s the outside limit,” Chokhani said, adding that while India and the US cannot remain at loggerheads indefinitely, the imbalance of negotiating power could stretch talks. “We don’t have too many things we can hold someone to ransom for, unlike China,” he noted.
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Despite near-term pain for companies and individuals, Chokhani said the long-term outlook matters more. “If it takes three months, six months or one year, it’s painful in the short term. But over a 10–20 year cycle, staying our course is the right thing to do.”China’s Strategic wake-up call
Chokhani said China’s response to pressure during Trump’s first presidency offers a lesson. “China took it as a wake-up call 10 years ago and realised it needed to build its own technology, markets and systems,” he said.
He rejected the notion that innovation cannot emerge from challenging environments. “Where did Tencent, Alibaba or BYD come from? They came from the same China we once dismissed,” Chokhani said, arguing that India is now facing a similar moment of reckoning in the technology space.
Indian IT services and terminal value risk
On Indian IT services, Chokhani struck a cautious tone on valuations. “Would you buy Indian IT services companies at high multiples today? You won’t, because you now know there is a terminal value to that business,” he said.
Drawing parallels with past disruptions, he said technological shifts clearly identify losers even when winners are uncertain. “Any disruption tells you very clearly who the losers are, even if we don’t yet know the winners,” he said.
Chokhani said artificial intelligence is a real business shift, comparable to the internet, and could still benefit India if domestic firms leverage data and efficiency. However, he warned that failure to adapt would cap long-term valuations. “AI is real, just like the internet was real. But India is going through a wake-up call in the technology space,” he said.
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