Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump has reiterated his desire to reciprocate tariffs imposed by India on some US products.
Trump made these comments on Tuesday and also said that India and Brazil were among the countries that imposed high tariffs on some US products.
“Reciprocal. If they tax us, we tax them the same amount. They tax us, we tax them. And they tax us. In almost all cases, they tax us, and we don’t tax them,” Trump told reporters Monday.
He made this comment while answering a question about a possible trade agreement with China. Trump said India and Brazil have high tariffs on some US products.
“The word reciprocal is important because if somebody charges us—India, we don’t have to talk about us—if India charges us 100 percent, don’t we charge them nothing for that? You know, they send in. A bicycle. And we send them bicycles and they charge us 100 and 200 to charge them the same thing,” Trump said at a news conference in Mar-a-Lago.
In response to a question, his Commerce Secretary Pick Howard Lutnick said that “reciprocity” is something that is going to be a key theme for the Trump administration. “How you treat us, you should expect to be treated,” he said.
During his election campaign in October, Trump claimed that India imposes the highest tariffs on foreign products. But they do it with a smile.
“Perhaps the most important element of my plan to make America extraordinarily rich is reciprocity. It’s a very important word in my plan because we don’t normally charge tariffs. I started that process, it was very good, vans and small trucks, etc.,” Trump said Thursday in October.
In 2019, Trump repeatedly claimed that India is a “tariff king” and imposes “extremely high” tariffs on US products.
He has criticized India’s “huge tariffs” on US paper products and iconic Harley-Davidson bikes.
The US is India’s largest trading partner in 2023-24. In the last financial year, India’s exports were 77.51 billion US dollars and imports were 42.2 billion US dollars.
In April-October of the current fiscal year, exports to the US increased by 6.31 percent to 47 billion 240 million US dollars, while imports increased by 2.46 percent to 26 billion US dollars.
Between FY 2020 and FY 2024, India’s merchandise exports to the US increased by 46 percent from USD 53.1 billion to USD 77.5 billion.
Imports from the US also reached USD 42.2 billion in the last financial year as against USD 35.8 billion in 2019-20.
On the other hand, trade in services between the two countries has expanded by 30.3 percent from USD 54.1 billion in 2018 to USD 70.5 billion in 2024.
India is also a major destination for US businesses such as professional, scientific and technical services, manufacturing, and IT. Washington is the third largest investor. India received USD 66.7 billion in FDI inflows between April 2000 and June 2024.