US President Donald Trump on Saturday claimed that India has agreed to reduce tariffs on American products, stating that the country was finally being “exposed” by someone for its trade policies.
“…India charges us massive tariffs. Massive. You can’t even sell anything in India…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…,” Trump said.
His remarks come amid ongoing discussions on a Bilateral Trade Agreement between the two countries.
They also come in the backdrop of Trump threatening to impose reciprocal tariffs on India and a host of other nations, including Canada and China, starting next month.
Justifying this, Trump said that the US has been ripped off by almost every country in the world from an economic standpoint, asserting that the same will have to stop now.
“Our country has been ripped off by everybody and that stops now. I had it stopped in my first term and we’re going to really stop it now because it has been very unfair. Our country from an economic standpoint, a financial standpoint and a trade standpoint, has been absolutely ripped off by almost every country in the world.”
However, the Indian government has downplayed Trump’s threats, asserting that both countries are engaged in discussions on a multi-sector trade agreement.
Responding to a question on Trump’s threat of reciprocal tariffs, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Friday that Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal had recently held discussions with his US counterparts regarding the trade agreement.
“Commerce and Industries Minister was in the U.S. and met his counterparts. The two governments are in the process of advancing discussions on a multi-sector bilateral trade agreement (BTA),” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.
He further stated that besides reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers, the objective of the BTA is to increase market access and deepen supply chain integration.
“Our objective through the BTA is to strengthen and deepen India-US two-way trade across the goods and services sector, increase market access, reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries,” he added.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump had agreed to move forward with negotiations on a mutually beneficial trade agreement.
Addressing a joint press conference with President Trump, Modi had announced that India and the US have set a USD 500 billion target for bilateral trade by 2030 and added that the teams of both nations will work together to finalise a mutually beneficial trade agreement.
“Today, we have also set a target to increase our bilateral trade to more than double, reaching USD 500 billion by 2030. Our teams will work on finalising very soon a mutually beneficial trade agreement,” the PM had stated.
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