Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump “aired”\ntheir concerns over the bilateral trade disputes and agreed for an early\nmeeting of their commerce ministers to sort out the issues, a day after the US\nleader demanded withdrawal of the “very high” tariffs levied by India\non American goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though trade is an important part of the booming bilateral relationship, a\nrow over market access and tariffs has escalated in recent months, leading to\nfears of a protracted dispute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, President Trump said that India’s “very high” tariffs\non US goods are “unacceptable” and must be withdrawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I look forward to speaking with Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi about\nthe fact that India, for years having put very high Tariffs against the United\nStates, just recently increased the Tariffs even further. This is unacceptable\nand the Tariffs must be withdrawn!” Trump said in a tweet on his way to\nOsaka, to participate in the G20 Summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The talks with @POTUS were wide ranging. We discussed ways to leverage\nthe power of technology, improve defence and security ties as well as issues\nrelating to trade,” Prime Minister Modi tweeted after his meeting with\nPresident Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“India stands committed to further deepen economic and cultural\nrelations with USA,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Briefing reporters on the Modi-Trump meeting, Foreign Secretary Vijay\nGokhale said the issue of trade was discussed by the two leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There was a discussion on trade, both sides aired their concerns, both\nsides spoke about the interest of the other side and what was agreed was that\nthe trade ministers of both countries would meet at an early date and would try\nand sort out these issues,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Prime Minister did mention in particular that we had taken some\naction after the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) was revoked, that that\nwas now something that already had happened and now we should now look forward\nand we should see how we can resolve some of these issues,” Gokhale said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Trump welcomed this idea, he said, noting that both US Trade\nRepresentative Robert Lighthizer and the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were\nin the room when the two top leaders met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“So what we expect now (is) an early meeting and the level is still be\ndecided whether it will be at the level of Commerce & Industry Minister and\nUSTR or we will first have technical discussions, that is an issue to be\ndecided,” the foreign secretary said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But essentially it was a very productive discussion, it was very open\ndiscussion and we will take things forward,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The foreign secretary also asserted that “no one issue is going to\nimpact on the larger strategic relationship between India and United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is a relationship which is deep, which is broad, we have some\nissues, we will work through them but no one issue is going to, in any way,\nhave any impact,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Modi-Trump meeting assumes significance in the wake of the strain that\nhas popped up in the bilateral relationship on a host of trade and economic\nissues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was in New Delhi said\nthat “great friends are bound to have disagreements”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We’ll keep working to resolve any economic disputes – not only those\nthat we have at this moment, but those that with any significant trading\nrelationship inevitably arise,” Pompeo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India has raised tariffs on 28 items, including almond, pulses and walnut,\nexported from the US in retaliation to America’s withdrawal of preferential\naccess for Indian products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Trump terminated India’s designation as a beneficiary developing\nnation under the key GSP trade programme from June 5 after determining that New\nDelhi has not assured the US that it will provide “equitable and\nreasonable access” to its markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Generalized System of Preference (GSP) is the largest and oldest US\ntrade preference programme and is designed to promote economic development by\nallowing duty-free entry for thousands of products from designated beneficiary\ncountries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration wants India to lower the trade barriers and embrace\n“fair and reciprocal” trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has also criticised India’s high import tariff on the iconic Harley-\nDavidson motorcycles as “unacceptable”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last February, India slashed the customs duty on imported motorcycles like\nHarley-Davidson to 50 per cent after Trump called it “unfair” and\nthreatened to increase the tariff on import of Indian bikes to the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government on June 21 last year decided to impose these duties in\nretaliation to the US decision of significantly hiking customs duties on\ncertain steel and aluminium products. America, in March last year, imposed 25\nper cent tariff on steel and a 10 per cent import duty on aluminium products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many US companies like Google, Mastercard, Visa and Amazon have raised\nconcerns over the issue of data localisation and its impact on their\noperational cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In April last year, the Reserve Bank of India issued a directive on ‘Storage\nof Payment System Data’. It had advised all system providers to ensure that\nwithin a period of six months, the entire data relating to payment systems\noperated by them is stored in a system only in India, for effective monitoring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India has also dragged the US to the World Trade Organisation’s dispute\nsettlement mechanism over the imposition of import duties on steel and\naluminium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India’s exports to the US in 2017-18 stood at USD 47.9 billion, while imports were at USD 26.7 billion. The trade balance is in favour of India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India levied tariffs:<\/strong> Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump “aired” their concerns over the bilateral trade disputes and agreed for an early meeting of their commerce ministers to sort out the issues, a day after the US leader demanded withdrawal of the “very high” tariffs levied by India on American goods. Though trade is an important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-2990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-international-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3635,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990\/revisions\/3635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Ministry of Commerce has announced to impose retaliatory tariffs on US goods<\/strong> that will be effective from June 16 onwards. The retaliatory tariffs on 28 goods imported from the U.S. <\/strong>The Ministry initially decided to impose tariffs in 2018. The decision is ahead of the meeting between Modi and Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan. <\/strong>The move made by the trade ministry was approved by the Ministry of External Affairs.
The tariffs will be applied on $220-290 million <\/strong>worth of goods that are imported from the US, and will have about the same impact as the tariffs imposed by Washington on India in 2018. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"