New York/Washington: US President Donald Trump said India has agreed to cut its tariffs “way down” as he reiterated his claim that the country charges America massive tariffs that make it difficult to sell products there.
“Our country, from an economic standpoint and financial standpoint and a trade standpoint, has been absolutely ripped off by almost every country in the world,” Trump said in remarks from the Oval Office Friday.
“Canada, Mexico and then you just go right down the line. India charges us massive tariffs, massive, you can’t even sell anything into India. It’s almost, it’s almost restrictive. It is restrictive. We do very little business inside,” he said.
“They’ve agreed, by the way, they want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody’s finally exposing them for what they’ve done. And the same thing with China, same thing with a lot of other countries, and the EU has been a terrible abuser of this country,” Trump added.
This was the third time this week that Trump has criticised the high tariffs charged by India.
On Thursday, Trump said India is a very high-tariff nation and reiterated that reciprocal tariffs on countries that impose levies on American goods will kick in April 2.
In his address to the joint session of Congress Tuesday, the first of his second term in the White House, Trump criticised the high tariffs charged by India and other countries and termed them as “very unfair”.
Addressing lawmakers from the US Capitol, Trump announced that reciprocal tariffs will kick in next month.
In the past, Trump has called India a “tariff king” and a “big abuser”.
Last month, during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the White House, Trump said that India has “been very strong on tariffs”.
“I don’t blame them, necessarily, but it’s a different way of doing business. It’s very hard to sell into India because they have trade barriers, very strong tariffs,” he had said.
