US President Donald Trump on Tuesday targeted India’s tariff regime once again, tweeting that it is no longer acceptable. “India has long had a field day putting tariffs on American products. No longer acceptable!” he posted from his Twitter handle.

The tweet came less than two weeks after Trump’s ‘patch-up’ meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Osaka, where the two decided to ask their respective trade teams to meet and iron out all the contentious issues.

The timing of the tweet is important as a team from the US Trade Representative’s office is scheduled to visit New Delhi later this week to hold talks with their Indian counterparts. The two teams are expected to negotiate a limited trade agreement. The deal had been suspended when the US decided early last month to withdraw a scheme offering duty-free entry to over 3,000 products from India.

India then imposed retaliatory tariffs on 28 US products with effect from June 16, 2019, after delaying them for a year. Those were in retaliation to the US not acceding India’s request for the withdrawal of penal duties on its steel and aluminium last year.

At the moment, the US wants India to remove price restrictions on medical equipment and labelling restrictions on dairy products and also lower duties on smartphones and other IT and telecom products.

 

Published on July 9, 2019