India agrees to waive import taxes on American products, according to Trump

US President Donald Trump has announced that India is willing to reduce its tariffs to “nothing,” while criticizing the current trade relationship with the nation as “a totally one-sided disaster.” US tariffs of 50% on goods from India, which include a 25% penalty for India’s refusal to halt oil purchases from Russia, went into effect last week. India has not responded to Trump’s comment, but this disagreement over Russian oil has caused tensions between Delhi and Washington to reach an all-time low. The timing of Trump’s comment coincides with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has argued that India indirectly funds Russia’s war in Ukraine by purchasing most of its oil and military products from Russia instead of the US. India has maintained that Russian oil is essential for meeting the energy demands of its large population and that the tariffs are “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable.” India’s Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal, has stated that the nation “will neither bow down nor ever appear weak” in its economic relationships with other countries. In a statement, Trump claimed that the US does very little business with India, while India sells massive amounts of goods to the US. This imbalance in trade has been a concern for many decades. Until recently, the US was India’s largest trading partner, but the tariffs have raised fears that exports and growth will suffer in the world’s fifth-largest economy. At the SCO summit, Modi was seen shaking hands with Putin before a meeting hosted by Xi. The SCO, which includes China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia, challenges the dominance of Trump and the US on a global scale. Modi and Putin spent 45 minutes in Putin’s car, following which Modi posted a picture of their journey with a compliment to Putin. Modi stated that the exchange with Putin was “insightful.”

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0r014p828o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss