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The US has said the higher duties imposed by the country on Indian steel and aluminium are not safeguard measures and therefore it could not agree to consultations requested by India at the World Trade Organisation for compensation under the Agreement on Safeguards.
In its submission to the WTO on Thursday, the US, however, added that it was open to discuss this or any other issue with India provided it is not under the Agreement on Safeguards, a Geneva-based trade official told BusinessLine .
India had dragged the US to the WTO earlier this week demanding that it give adequate compensation to it under the Safeguards Agreement for the 10 per cent increase in tariffs for aluminium and 25 per cent for steel imposed selectively on the country last month.
“The US notes that the premise for India's request for consultations under Article 12.3 of the Agreement on Safeguards is that the steel and aluminium proclamations are safeguard measures…..The President issued the Steel and Aluminium Proclamations under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, under which he determined that tariffs are necessary to adjust imports of steel and aluminium articles that threaten to impair the national security of the United States. These actions are not safeguard measures, and therefore, there is no basis to conduct consultations under the Agreement on Safeguards with respect to these measures,” the submission stated.
The US, added, that while India’s requests for consultations under the Safeguards Agreement did not have any basis, it was open to discuss its concerns on the issue of aluminium and steel outside the ambit of the agreement.
India’s stance
New Delhi, which has been pointing out to the US that it does not deserve to be in the list of targeted countries, which also includes Japan and China, will now get another chance to state its case. The country’s primary argument is that it cannot be a security threat to the US as it has been the country’s security partner for long and has also taken steps to reduce the trade imbalance existing between the two countries.
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