Trump Issues New Tariff Warning to India

According to US President Donald Trump, he was planning on “substantially” increasing the tariffs on Indian imports in the next day, owing to India’s purchases of Russian oil.

During his announcements on the 28th of March 2023, the president of the united states cited his reasoning for raising tariffs on imports from India. This decision supposedly comes from the 4.5 million barrels of oil India imports from Russia. “India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25 percent but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil,” he told CNBC in a televised interview.

From his words we can clearly see he has a ‘my way or the highway’ mindset. He follows that up with his statement explaining he will be raising the trading tariff. A spokesman for India’s foreign department commented. “In reply to that, we will defend India’s position on the matter, we are prepared to take the steps needed to protect our interests and national security, extending even to economic warfare.”

Trump has claimed that starting from Friday, he will impose additional sanctions on Russia and on countries purchasing its energy commodities, unless Moscow takes action to stop its 3-1/2 year ongoing war with Ukraine, opens new tab. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no public sign of altering his stance irrespective of the deadline.

Two sources from the Indian government have informed “Reuters” that India will continue to buy oil from Russia, ignoring the sanctions.
India has come under pressure from its Western allies to disassociate with Moscow since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. India has maintained its position on these demands, citing its age-old relationship with Russia and economic requirements, opens new tab.

In July, Trump announced additional 25% tariffs on Indian imports. In his statements, Trump mentioned that there were numerous geopolitical factors impeding a trade relationship between the U.S. and India.

Trump’s stance on the larger group of developing nations, termed BRICS, has been that these countries are antagonistic to America. In defense, those countries have claimed that their arguments are focused on self-interest of their nations along with the being beneficial to the developing world in general.