Trump tariffs: India says “no commitment to cut tariffs” so far
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Even as US President Donald Trump is building up pressure on India—and other countries—to cut tariffs on their imports from America, India on Tuesday clarified that it has not committed so far to slashing import duties on US products.
This came within days after President Donald Trump announced that New Delhi had agreed to “cut their tariffs way down.” Last week, Trump again railed against India’s “massive tariffs.”
After his re-inauguration on January 20, Trump has upended global trade, targeting friends and foes alike, blamed all trading partners of “unfair” practices, and announced reciprocal tariffs on many countries, including India, to begin from next month.
“You can’t sell anything into India, it is almost restrictive,” Trump said.
“They have agreed, by the way, they want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them for what they have done,” he added.
But, according to media reports, the government told a parliamentary panel that “no commitments had been made to the US on the issue.”
It “has sought time until September to address the issue that is being repeatedly flagged by the American president,” it added.
India’s Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said that “India and the US were working towards a mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement, focusing on long-term trade cooperation instead of merely seeking immediate tariffs adjustments.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the White House last month, said the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a “mutually beneficial trade agreement” to be sealed “very soon.”
While the United States is a crucial market for India’s information technology and services sectors, Washington has sold new military hardware woth billions of dollars to New Delhi in recent years.
President Trump is likely to visit India later this year for a summit of heads of state from the Quad — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.
