US President Donald Trump clubbed India with China and Brazil, calling them” high-tariff countries,” and said his administration would very soon be putting tariffs on clutch of products, including pharmaceuticals, aluminium and steel, which are items of export interest to India.
“In the very near future we are going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the US,” he said addressing his Republican house members in Florida.
“China is a tremendous tariff maker, and India and Brazil and so many other countries. So we’re not going to let that happen any longer because we’re going to put America first,” he said. This is for the first time, he has specifically mentioned a tariff action being contemplated against India after assuming office, though he had spoken about India’s “high tariffs” several times earlier, including at the hustings. “We’re going to put tariffs on outside countries and outside people that really mean harm to us. Well, they mean us harm, but they basically want to make their country good,” Trump said.
India’s external affairs ministry said Trump and Modi discussed bilateral relationships, “including in the areas of technology, trade, investment, energy and defence,” the White House stressed that India would step up its procurement of defence equipment from the US , while moving towards a “fair” bilateral trade relationship.
e Pew Research Center estimated that 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US as of 2024. India has made it clear that it would take back Indians overstaying anywhere in the world as long as their documents were shared and nationality was verified.
The US is the biggest foreign market for Indian pharmaceutical producers with a total share of 38.8% in the medicines imported by the country. In April-November India exported drug formulations worth $ 5.8 billion to the US. In 2023-24 pharma exports to the US were $ 8.0 billion. ion.
In April-November steel and steel product exports to the US were $ 2.3 billion and aluminium products exports stood at $ 516 million. In his first presidency also in 2018 Trump had imposed additional tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium from all countries including India. In retaliation India imposed a similar number of duties on some US products. This dispute was finally settled with the administration of President Joe Biden in 2023. The US-India bilateral trade in goods stood at $120 billion in FY24, with India enjoying a trade surplus.
