U.S. President Donald Trump says India’s recent tariff hike unacceptable
U.S. President Donald Trump looks forward to speaking with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about a recent increase in its already high tariffs against the United States, he said on the social network Twitter on Thursday.
“This is unacceptable and the tariffs must be withdrawn,” Trump added.
Donald Trump has for about a year now publicly expressed his displeasure over the status of India-US economic relationship, particularly the alleged high tariffs by India.
In the past several months, he has called India a “tariff king” and threatened to impose reciprocal tariffs on Indian products as well.
Immediately after PM Modi was sworn in for second term, Trump informed the US Congress of his decision to terminate India’s designation as a beneficiary developing nation under the key GSP trade programme after determining that it has not assured the US that it will provide “equitable and reasonable access to its markets.”
The Generalised System of Preference (GSP) is the largest and oldest US trade preference programme and is designed to promote economic development by allowing duty-free entry for thousands of products from designated beneficiary countries.