India offered to cut tariffs to “nothing”, claims Trump, but it’s getting late

New Delhi, Sept 1: Days after it imposed 50 per cent tariffs on imports from India, the US President Donald Trump today again attacked India’s trade policies saying the relationship has been “one-sided” for many decades and also accused India of buying most of oil and military products from Russia, but very little from the US.

Claiming that India has offered to cut their tariffs to nothing, Trump said in a post on his social media handle Social Truth that it is getting late. “It has been a totally one-sided disaster,” he said. The US does very little business with India, but they (India) do a tremendous amount of business with us. In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, terming the US as India’s biggest client.

But we sell them very little – until now a totally one-sided relationship, and it has been for decades. The reason is that India has charged us, until now, such high tariffs, the most of any country, that our businesses are unable to sell into India, the US President said.

The US has imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian imports that included 25 per cent punitive tariffs for India’s decision to buy crude from Russia and blamed India for funding the Russian war against Ukraine.

Trump also noted that India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the U.S.

“They (India) have now offered to cut their tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late,” he said, adding they should have done so years ago.

The trade negotiations have been going on for several months between India and the US but have not been concluded till now. The trade negotiations have come to halt temporarily as the US team cancelled their visit to India which was scheduled in the last week of August amidst tariffs announcement by the US.

According to sources, Indian officials from the Ministry of Commerce are in constant touch with their counterparts in the US even as it termed the high tariffs as “unjustified” and “unreasonable”.

Ties between India and the US have hit a rough patch in the last few weeks. Trump has taken issue in particular with India’s continued purchase of Russian oil, imposing an additional 25 percent tariffs on Indian exports on 6 August. The additional duties are above and beyond the baseline 25 percent tariffs that came into effect on 7 August.

No official comment was available on Trump’s claim that India has offered to cut their tariffs to nothing.