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US President Donald Trump said Friday that India has ‘agreed” to ‘cut their tariffs way down’. Speaking at the Oval Office, Trump said, “India charges us massive tariffs, massive you can’t even sell anything in India. It’s almost… it is restrictive. You know, we do very little business inside. They have agreed, by the way. They want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody’s finally exposing them for what they have done.”
Trump’s remarks came hours after India’s cautious reaction to US announcement on reciprocal tariffs. India in its response said it is looking at deepening trade ties with the US including by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers under a bilateral trade agreement.
Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, said that during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last month, both sides announced plans to negotiate a mutually beneficial, multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).
“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,” Jaiswal said.
In his latest salvo, the US president while addressing a joint session of the Congress on Tuesday mentioned India alongside the European Union, China and Canada for charging higher tariffs on American products.
Trump said other countries have used tariffs against the US for decades, and now it’s “our turn” to start using them against those nations.
Modi held talks with Trump on February 13 talks in Washington DC.
In the meeting, the two sides agreed to negotiate a mega trade deal by the end of this year and set an ambitious target of USD 500 billion in annual trade by 2030 to narrow the trade deficit.
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