Satire or Sabotage? Congress Party Sparks Backlash with AI-Generated Trade Deal Video

The satirical footage presents a scenario in which the Prime Minister purportedly agrees to an 18% tariff on Indian exports and a commitment to purchase $500 billion in American goods—a move the video suggests would effectively dismantle the "Make in India" initiative. Most controversially, the video implies that these concessions were extracted by President Trump through the use of leverage involving the recently unsealed "Epstein files." While the clip was explicitly marked as a deepfake, its release follows real-world mentions of the Prime Minister in unsealed documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case—mentions that the Indian government has categorically dismissed as baseless and irrelevant.

The timing of the video is particularly sensitive, coming just days after President Trump’s February 2 announcement of a major "trade breakthrough" between the two nations. While New Delhi has remained cautious, with officials requesting further clarity on the specifics of the arrangement, a formal trade pact is widely expected to be signed by March. Critics of the Congress party have slammed the video as a "cheap tactic" that undermines national interests during delicate international negotiations. Conversely, supporters have defended the move as a sharp, modern form of political satire designed to question the transparency of the deal's terms.

As India prepares for the finalized trade agreement next month, this incident highlights the growing role of generative AI in shaping—and potentially distorting—public perception of diplomatic affairs. The fallout from the video suggests that while the government remains focused on the administrative hurdles of the upcoming pact, the domestic battleground is increasingly being defined by "synthetic media." This escalation not only challenges the traditional boundaries of political discourse but also forces a broader conversation on how the public distinguishes between diplomatic reality and digitally manufactured dissent in an era of rapid technological advancement.