United States President-elect Donald Trump has reiterated his intention to impose reciprocal tax on India, stating that New Delhi imposes high tariffs on foreign goods, PTI reported on Wednesday.
“The word reciprocal is important because if somebody charges us – India, we do not have to talk about our own – if India charges us 100%, do we charge them nothing for the same?” Trump said at a news conference.
The comment was in response to a question about a potential trade agreement with China.
The president-elect said that India and Brazil were among the countries that charge high tariffs on US products.
“You know, they send in a bicycle and we send them a bicycle,” he said. “They charge us 100 and 200. India charges a lot. Brazil charges a lot. If they want to charge us, that’s fine, but we’re going to charge them the same thing.”
Howard Lutnick, the person Trump has selected as his commerce secretary, also stated that “reciprocity” is going to be a key matter for the incoming administration, PTI reported.
“How you treat us is how you should expect to be treated,” said Lutnick.
In the run-up to the elections, Trump, who was the president of the United States between 2017 and 2021, vowed to introduce a reciprocal tax if he was re-elected.
He said in October that “reciprocity” would be an important element of his economic plan to “make America extraordinarily wealthy again”.
“It’s a word that’s very important in my plan because we generally don’t charge tariffs,” Trump had said. “I started that process, it was so great, with the vans and the small trucks, etc. We really don’t charge. China will charge us a 200% tariff. Brazil is a big charger. The biggest charger of all is India.”
Trump has voiced concerns about India’s trade ties with the United States on several occasions in the past.
On September 17, Trump called India a “very big abuser” of the trade relationship with his country.
In August 2023, he claimed that India imposes excessively high tax rates on American products, and said that he would introduce reciprocal taxes if he were to come to power in 2024.
In February 2019, India had slashed the customs duty on imported motorcycles such as Harley-Davidson to 50% after Trump called it “unfair” and threatened to increase the tariff on import of Indian bikes to the United States. Trump had responded at the time saying that the rate was still “unacceptable”.
Three months later, Washington had terminated the designation of India as a beneficiary developing country under the Generalized System of Preferences Programme, claiming that India had not assured the US that it would “provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets”. Trump was the president of the United States at the time.
Under the programme, certain products can enter the United States duty-free if beneficiary developing countries meet the eligibility criteria established by its Congress.
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