United States President Donald Trump said on Monday that America was “getting nothing” from India’s announcement that it had slashed import duty on Harley Davidson motorbikes to 50%.
“We want fair trade deals. We want reciprocal trade deals,” Trump said at a gathering of the governors of all states at the White House. “So when they [Harley Davidson] send a motorcycle to India, they have to pay 100% tax – 100%.”
Trump said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who the US president described as a “beautiful man” – had called him and said that India had lowered import duty on the motorbikes to 50%. “I said, okay, but so far we’re getting nothing,” Trump added. “So we get nothing, he gets 50%, and they think they’re doing us a favour. That’s not a favour.”
He claimed that India sold “a lot of motorbikes” to the United States without paying any duty on its exports, while the US had to pay 50% to export Harley Davidson motorcycles to the country.
“That’s not good for you people, especially as governors,” the US president told the attendees. “It’s just not right. And we have many deals like that.”
On Friday, Trump had criticised India and China for “unfairly benefiting” from the Paris climate agreement, from which the United States pulled out in June 2017.
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