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Informist, Saturday, Mar. 8, 2025

 

NEW DELHI - Days after announcing reciprocal tariffs on India and other countries, US President Donald Trump on Friday said India "wants to cut tariffs way down now" as the country has been "exposed" for charging massive duties. Trump's remarks come after India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal's visit to the US to negotiate on bilateral trade agreement and tariffs. Goyal visited the US from Mar. 4 to 6, according to the External Affairs Ministry.

 

"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 during a media interaction at White House.

 

On Tuesday, Trump announced reciprocal tariffs from Apr. 2. He made the announcement in an address to the joint session of Congress. Trump announced his plan for reciprocal tariffs on Feb. 13 and signed a Presidential Memorandum — "Reciprocal Trade and Tariffs," directing his administration to develop a comprehensive plan to address trade imbalances by matching tariffs imposed by other countries on US goods. "I've decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the US, we will charge them," he said.

 

Earlier Friday, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India is focussed on bilateral trade agreement talks with the US to lower tariff and non-tariff barriers. "The two governments are in the process of advancing discussions on a multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement. Our objective through the bilateral trade agreement is to strengthen and deepen India-US two-way trade across goods and services, increase market access, reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries. So, that is how we look at the issue of tariff as far as India-US is concerned," Jaiswal said in a media briefing.

 

He also said that Goyal met his counterpart in the US to take forward mutual discussions on trade tariff and other issues. "...These issues have been discussed and we'll see more in the coming days in the direction that it goes. Both sides are keen to take these discussions on Bilateral Trade Agreement, advancing these discussions further on a multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement. Over and above, I don't have those details. Technical details of the meetings will be shared by the relevant ministry when time is appropriate," Jaiswal said.

 

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US visit last month, both sides had announced that they would engage and negotiate a mutually beneficial multi-sector bilateral trade agreement.  End

 

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Ashish Shirke

 

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