Despite Trump’s latest tariff announcement, the plans for the visit of the US delegation from August 25 to India for the sixth round of talks for the first tranche of the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) remained unchanged.
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Piyush Goyal
Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said in a statement in Parliament that the government attaches “the utmost importance to protecting and promoting the welfare of our farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, exporters, MSMEs and all sections of Industry.” He reiterated the government would take all necessary steps to secure and advance national interest.
Goyal said the implications of the recent development are being examined by the government and the ministry s engaged with all stakeholders including exporters and industry for taking feedback of their assessment of the situation.
Along with the 25% additional tariffs, Trump also announced a penalty on India for buying energy and defence equipment from Russia. The rate of the penalty or its base is yet to be specified, although Trump had earlier talked about a 10% penal tariff on BRICS countries for continuing to trade with Russia which faces NATO sanctions.
After the latest tariff announcement by Trump, Washington has been blowing hot and cold.
Officials said a formal notification or a communication from the US is awaited for clarity on how the new tariff rates will be applied.
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BTA deadline
India and the US have set a deadline of October-November for the BTA first tranche to conclude. The first round of negotiations was held in March when both sides finalised the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the agreement. Between the physical meetings many rounds of virtual meetings have also been held.
After the post on Truth Social announcing tariffs on India, Trump again was conciliatory, telling the mediapersons that India is a friend and has the highest tariffs in the world which they are willing to cut substantially. “We’re talking to India now, we’ll see what happens … You’ll know by the end of this week,” he said.
A few hours later the US President in another social media post again lambasted India for its ties with Russia. “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care. We have done very little business with India, their Tariffs are too high, among the highest in the World,” he said.
On Thursday the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed Trump on India’s dealings with Russia saying that “They have not been a great global actor”.
On whether some kind of a deal is still possible with India before the August 1 deadline for additional tariffs, he said “I don’t know what’s going to happen. It will be up to India. India came to the table early. They’ve been slow rolling things. So I think that the president, the whole trade team, has been frustrated with them.”