Hikes in customs tariffs in the period from 2011 (a de-facto reversal of the tariff reforms done during 1992-2008) and surge in the number of anti-dumping procedures initiated (ADPINI) by India in recent years make it a phenomenon of foreign trade on the reverse gear, although there is no apparent dilution in the emphasis on export promotion. This paper probes the interplay of some the long-term determinants of economic growth (such as, technological progress and human capital formation) associated with the changes noticed in foreign trade using data for the 1980-2020 period and deploying autoregressive distributed lag models. Tariff and ADPINI significantly influenced the import demand. Education, innovation, and competition are crucial determinants of productivity. The worsening in the position in all the three were responsible for the sharp drop in productivity growth in recent years. Erosion in competition and subdued productivity growth adversely impacted India’s export performance, post-2011. The argument that the recent slow growth in India’s exports was due to the slowdown in world economic activity is not assisted by data. These findings yield answers to a set of policy questions and provide an alternative on the economic slowdown in India during 2017-20. The long-term determinants of growth were crucial in the perceived-to-be-short term variation in economic growth in India, and this has relevance for the current policy debate on economic growth, globally and in India. The country experience may contribute to the understanding of contemporary growth process. JEL Codes: F13, F14, O4.