- By Abhishek Parashar
- Thu, 11 Sep 2025 08:13 PM (IST)
- Source:JNM
Fact Check: Amid the tension in relations between India and the US over tariffs, a video clip of former US President Barack Obama is being shared on various social media platforms, in which he can be heard praising India for not 'bowing down' to Trump's tariff pressure. It is being claimed that Obama stated in one of his speeches that while other countries caved to Donald Trump's tariff pressure, India stood firm on its stance in this matter.
According to news reports quoting officials from the Trump administration, India's stance on tariffs has been adamant, and it has not yielded to US pressure even after the 50 per cent tariff came into effect. However, the video going viral with the claim that Obama praised India and condemned other countries for this stance is not real, but a deepfake, which has been AI-generated.
What is viral?
'The Global Updates' YouTube channel has shared this video (archive link ) of nearly half-hour-long video of Obama's speech, in which he can be heard praising India and criticising other countries for not succumbing to Trump's tariff pressure.
In the viral video, Obama can be heard saying, “My friends, today we gather at a moment when history itself seems to bend toward the unexpected. A nation once regarded as a developing voice, a nation once dismissed as secondary in the great halls of global power, has now stepped forward to do something no other country dared. India, with courage rooted in its heritage and conviction rooted in its future, has taken an action that has left the world. Yes, even America astonished, what we are witnessing is not merely a geopolitical manoeuvre, it is not just another headline in a cycle of breaking news, it is a statement, a declaration and a turning point that forces the world to look again at the balance of power, the meaning of sovereignty and the shape of tomorrow.”
The full statement can be read here: Drive Link
Investigation
With the implementation of a 25 per cent extra tariff on August 27, 2025 the total tariff on Indian products exported to America has become 50 per cent. With this, India is included in the list of those few countries in the world facing the maximum American tariff. There is no trade deal between India and America yet, and there is tension between the two countries regarding this.
Many statements have been made by Trump and his administration regarding the trade deal, to which there has been no official response from India. However, in our news search, we did not find any report that mentioned former US President Barack Obama's statement in which he praised India's stand on the tariff issue and mentioned other countries bowing to Trump's pressure.
This raised the suspicion that the viral audio is a deepfake. Therefore, we analysed this audio using deepfake detection tools.
We checked this multimedia with the help of the University of Buffalo’s Deepfake-O-Meter, and almost all of its indicators confirmed the maximum possibility of AI manipulation in this video.
The analysis by the AASIST (2021) detector confirmed that this audio is almost 100 per cent AI-created, and the LFCC-LCNN (2021) detector also confirmed that this audio is 100 per cent AI-created.
Other detectors also confirmed the possibility of this audio being AI-created.
For further verification, we contacted Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU), an initiative of our partner MCA. We shared small fragments of the audio used in the viral multimedia with DAU to investigate it. We divided the audio track since the beginning of about 15 minutes into three-minute-long segments, and DAU checked it using deepfake detection tools. In their investigation, they confirmed the possibility of this audio track being AI-created.
DAU shared with us the analysis of the Hiya tool, which confirmed that most of this 15-minute audio track is AI-created, except for a few seconds of the track.
Read the analysis report here.
Our investigation clearly shows that the audio going viral in Obama's voice is a deepfake.
As per the reports, US President Donald Trump signed the US-Japan trade agreement, under which a 15 per cent tariff will be imposed on Japanese imports. Earlier, Trump had imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Japan.
In news reports, regarding the trade deal between India and America, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that a trade deal can be reached between the two countries by November.
The YouTube channel of the user who shared Obama's deepfake audio has around 3000 subscribers. Fact-check reports of other deepfake multimedia going viral on social media can be read in the AI Check section of Vishvas News.
Conclusion: The video going viral with the claim that Obama is praising India and condemning other countries for not bowing to Trump's tariff pressure is not real but a deepfake created with the help of AI. India is currently facing a 50 per cent US tariff, the highest compared to other countries.