NEW DELHI: US president Donald Trump on Friday said India had agreed to bring tariffs “way down”, while claiming credit for the move in yet another tirade against several “high-tariff” countries.
“India charges us massive tariffs, you can’t even sell anything in India, it’s almost restrictive… By the way, they have agreed to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them for what they have done,” he told reporters in the White House.
The comments came at a time when an Indian team led by commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal is in the US to work out the contours of a bilateral agreement. So far, govt has remained tight-lipped about the negotiations that are currently underway.
Trump’s statement came hours after US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick sought a “grand” deal that included farm products, while suggesting India stop defence purchases from Russia. “It’s time to do something big…something that connects India and US together, but…on a broad scale, not product by product, but rather the whole thing,” he said at the India Today Conclave.