President Donald Trump has taken a swipe at India along with the world’s other top economies and accused New Delhi of charging 100 per cent tariff on some of the US’ goods, as he threatened to cut trade ties with countries who are robbing America.
Trump made the remarks in Canada’s Quebec City where he was attending the G7 summit that ended in farce after he abruptly rejected the text of a consensus statement and bitterly insulted the host.
“We’re like the piggybank that everybody is robbing,” Trump said while addressing a press conference on Saturday.
He also made a reference to India, indicating that his grievances on tariffs was not restricted to the developed economies alone.
“This isn’t just G7. I mean, we have India, where some of the tariffs are 100 per cent. A hundred per cent. And we charge nothing. We can’t do that. And so we are talking to many countries,” Trump said.
Trump has repeatedly raked up the issue of India imposing high import duty on the iconic Harley-Davidson motorcycles and threatened to increase the import tariff on “thousands and thousands” of Indian motorcycles to the US.
“We’re talking to all countries. And it’s going to stop. Or we’ll stop trading with them. And that’s a very profitable answer, if we have to do it,” Trump warned before leaving Canada for Singapore where he is scheduled to hold a much publicised summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un tomorrow.
His remarks came at a time when the India-US relationship has been on a positive trajectory for years. For example, bilateral trade expanded by USD 11 billion last year to more than USD 125 billion, a new record.
Trump, who is pushing his ‘America First’ policy, said his ultimate goal was the elimination of all trade duties.
“Ultimately that’s what you want,” he said. “You want a tariff free. You want no barriers. And you want no subsidies. Because you have some cases where countries are subsidizing industries and that’s not fair.”
China and the US have averted a trade war by reaching an agreement last month under which Beijing has agreed to “significantly increase” its purchases of American goods and services to reduce USD 375 billion trade deficit with Washington.