MUMBAI: India’s foreign minister said on Saturday (Aug 23) that trade negotiations with Washington are continuing but there are lines that New Delhi needs to defend, just days before hefty additional US tariffs are due to hit.
Indian goods face additional US tariffs of up to 50 per cent, among the highest imposed by Washington, due to its increased purchases of Russian oil. A 25 per cent tariff has already come into effect, while the remaining 25 per cent is set to be enforced from Aug 27.
A planned visit by US trade negotiators to New Delhi from Aug 25 to Aug 29 has been called off, dashing hopes that the levies may be lowered or postponed.
“We have some redlines in the negotiations, to be maintained and defended,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said at an Economic Times forum event in New Delhi, singling out the interests of the country’s farmers and small producers.
India-US trade talks collapsed earlier this year due to India not agreeing to open its vast agricultural and dairy sectors. Bilateral trade between the world’s largest and fifth-largest economy is worth over US$190 billion.
“It is our right to make decisions in our ‘national interest’,” Jaishankar said.
Analysts at Capital Economics said on Friday that if the full US tariffs come into force and stick, the hit to India’s economic growth would be 0.8 percentage points both this year and next.
“The longer-term harm could be even greater as a high tariff could puncture India’s appeal as a global manufacturing hub.”
The Indian minister described US President Donald Trump’s policy announcements as “unusual”.
“We have not had a US president who conducts his foreign policy so publicly as the current one and (it) is a departure from the traditional way of conducting business with the world,” Jaishankar said.
