The U.S. will levy a 25 percent tariff on India, which includes a “penalty” for buying military equipment and energy from Russia amid the war in Ukraine, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.
“Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
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He continued:
Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE — ALL THINGS NOT GOOD! INDIA WILL THEREFORE BE PAYING A TARIFF OF 25%, PLUS A PENALTY FOR THE ABOVE, STARTING ON AUGUST FIRST.
When reporters asked Trump on Tuesday if a deal with India had been finalized, Trump shot back, “No, it’s not,” the Hill reported. The tariff announcement less than 24 hours later confirmed that answer.
The Indian government through its Ministry of Commerce and Industry responded in a statement:
The Government has taken note of a statement by the US President on bilateral trade. The Government is studying its implications.
India and the US have been engaged in negotiations on concluding a fair, balanced and mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement over the last few months. We remain committed to that objective.
The announcement comes just days after President Trump, as Breitbart News reported, used trade to not only strike a historic deal with the European Union (EU) but to obtain a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia.
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The EU deal, announced over the weekend, removed all tariffs on U.S. goods exported to Europe while setting a baseline 15 percent tariff on European imports — including as part of the deal the EU’s commitment to purchasing $750 billion in U.S. energy products.
The president explained the role of trade in obtaining the Southeast Asia ceasefire during a sit-down interview in Scotland with Breitbart News:
I said ‘listen, we’re doing a trading deal’—with Thailand I started—‘we’re doing a trading deal and I’m not going to be doing a deal if you’re going to be killing each other.’ Then I spoke to Cambodia and said essentially the same thing. I dealt with the two prime ministers—they were terrific people. They don’t want to see a war. But somebody had to implement what I did.
The threat of tariffs has become one of the president’s go-to cudgels on international affairs.
The president, who has become increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, this week set a new, shorter deadline in the next two weeks for the Russian leader to agree to a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine.
Otherwise, Trump has indicated, he will impose a 100 percent “secondary” tariff on other nations that do business with Russia in an effort to impact the country’s economy and perhaps motivate Putin to seek peace.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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