Washington: US President Donald Trump has given a big and positive statement on trade relations with India. Trump has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is his very good friend and he is confident that a trade deal will be concluded between America and India soon.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House, President Trump said, “We will reach an agreement because I like Prime Minister Narendra Modi very much. He is a good friend of mine. We have a very good relationship and we are going to reach an excellent agreement.”
‘India has imposed heavy tariffs in the past’- Trump
While talking about the ongoing trade negotiations between the two countries, Trump also expressed dissatisfaction with the old policies. He said that India took advantage of US policies for years and imposed heavy tariffs on American companies. According to Trump, “They imposed very high taxes on our companies, whereas we did not impose any duty on their companies. For example, the prestigious American company ‘Harley-Davidson’ was earlier imposed 200% duty, due to which their business was disrupted and they had to set up a plant in India. However, this was before my tenure.”
Talks started again after Supreme Court’s decision
It is noteworthy that earlier this week, an American delegation had visited India, where intensive discussions were held for four days regarding the interim bilateral agreement between the two countries. According to the Commerce Ministry of India, the talks were extremely positive and practical.
Earlier, after the phone conversation between PM Modi and President Trump on February 7, the outline of an interim trade agreement was prepared, in which the US agreed to reduce the duty imposed on India from 50% to 18% and remove the 25% additional duty imposed on buying oil from Russia.
However, on February 20, the US Supreme Court ruled against the sweeping reciprocity tariffs imposed by Trump under the ‘International Emergency Economic Powers Act’ (IEEPA). After this, Trump had announced to impose 10% duty on all countries. After this decision of the Supreme Court and the changed developments, now India and America are in fresh talks to finalize this trade agreement.
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