India and the United States have agreed to hold comprehensive trade talks, days after United States President Donald Trump accused New Delhi of taxing some US goods almost 100%, PTI reported.
“We will now work together to expand [bilateral] trade,” Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said after a series of meetings with US officials in Washington on Tuesday. Prabhu said India would send an official team to the US to work out the details and begin the negotiations. “The team will come within the next few days,” Prabhu added.
“We are like the piggybank that everybody is robbing,” Trump said on June 9 at a press conference in Canada’s Quebec city, where he was attending the G7 summit. “This is not just G7. I mean, we have India, where some of the tariffs are 100%. A hundred percent. And we charge nothing. We cannot do that. And so we are talking to many countries.”
The US imposed hefty tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from the Europe Union, Canada and Mexico last week. After attending the G7 summit, Trump withdrew his endorsement of a joint statement and said the country would take another look at tariffs on automobiles. The joint communique advocated a “rules-based trading system”.
In the past, Trump has criticised India for imposing a high import tax on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He said the US charges no tax on Indian bike imports, and that India’s tax was an example of “unfair” trade practices.
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