India Favors Trade Agreement over Retaliatory Tariffs
April 07, 25
(IDEX Online) - India is expected to press ahead with a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) with the US, rather than imposing retaliatory tariffs.
President Donald Trump's announcement last Tuesday (1 April) of a 26 per cent tariff on all goods from India entering the US has brought the country's diamond industry to a virtual halt.
But instead of fighting back with counter-tariffs on US imports, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (pictured) is understood to favor finalizing a BTA that was agreed in principle in February during his two-day visit to Washington.
It's part of Mission 500, a plan to increase the total trade volume between both countries from $190bn in 2023 to $500bn by 2030. The first phase is due to be implemented between September and November of this year.
Modi's office said in February: "The leaders resolved to expand trade and investment to make their citizens more prosperous, nations stronger, economies more innovative and supply chains more resilient.
"They resolved to deepen the US-India trade relationship to promote growth that ensures fairness, national security and job creation."
That was after Trump promised to "tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens" during his inaugural address in January, though the scale of those tariffs was still unknown.