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India says it has not committed to slashing import duties on US products, days after President Donald Trump announced that New Delhi had agreed to “cut their tariffs way down”. A tariff or duty (the words are used interchangeably) is a tax levied by governments on the value including freight and insurance of imported products. Different tariffs are applied on different products by different countries.
Only weeks into his second term, Trump has upended global trade, targeting friends and foes alike. He has also blamed all trading partners of “unfair” practices, and has announced reciprocal tariffs on many countries, including India, to begin from next month. Trump once again railed at India’s “massive tariffs” last week.
“You can’t sell anything into India, it is almost restrictive,” Trump said. “They have agreed, by the way, they want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them for what they have done,” he added.
But the Indian government told a parliamentary panel that “no commitments had been made to the US on the issue,” a report in a newspaper said on Tuesday.
The government “has sought time until September to address the issue that is being repeatedly flagged by the American president,” it added. India’s commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal “said that India and the US were working towards a mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement, focusing on long-term trade cooperation instead of merely seeking immediate tariffs adjustments”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the White House last month, has an acknowledged rapport with Trump, who said he shares a “special bond” with the Indian leader.
PM Modi Says…
Modi said the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a “mutually beneficial trade agreement” to be sealed “very soon”. While the United States is a crucial market for India’s information technology and services sectors, Washington has made billions of dollars in new military hardware sales to New Delhi in recent years.
Trump could visit India later this year for a summit of heads of state from the Quad — a four-way grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States. A few days ago, President Trump had made it clear to PM Modi that India will not be spared from Washington’s reciprocal tariffs and emphasized that ‘nobody can argue with me’ on tariff structure.
U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the high tariffs charged by India and other countries including Canada, Mexico, China, terming them as “very unfair” and announced reciprocal tariffs from April 2 on nations that impose levies on American goods.
Mr. Trump made these remarks in an address to the Joint Session of the Congress on Tuesday (March 4, 2025). It was the first address of his second term in the White House. On January 20, Mr. Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the US.
In fact, two days after Donald Trump’s claim that India had committed to bring tariffs “way down”, govt told a parliamentary panel that no commitments on the issue had been made to the US and it has sought time until Sept to address the issue that is being repeatedly flagged by the American president.
Appearing before the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs, commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal is learnt to have said that India and the US were working towards a mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement, focusing on long-term trade cooperation instead of merely seeking immediate tariff adjustments.
He also sought to allay concerns over tariff actions against India, arguing that New Delhi was engaged with Washington on a trade deal, in sharp contrast to China, Canada and Mexico — where Trump has announced tariff actions, some of which have already kicked in.
US talks could also prove beneficial for India, as per the commerce secretary. The parliamentary panel, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, had asked commerce secretary and foreign secretary Vikram Misri to appear before it and explain recent developments, including media reports quoting Trump that India had agreed to lower its tariffs.
Trade issues and Trump’s repeated threats of tariff actions are learnt to have dominated the meeting Monday, where Barthwal made it clear that the country’s interests would be safeguarded during talks for trade deal. He said govt could only react after Trump administration had taken some steps, which was not the case so far.
The commerce secretary has pointed out that the talks could also prove to be beneficial for India. There is a section in govt which believes higher tariffs on countries such as China will open the doors for India in certain sectors in addition to the proposed bilateral agreement helping export of Indian textiles and leather products.
Last week, external affairs minister S Jaishankar had suggested that Trump’s stance on tariffs and foreign policy could throw up openings for India. Commerce department officials have maintained that India and US can complement each other, given the list of products that each of them produces.
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