Modi during a meeting with Trump
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: President Donald Trump on Friday said that New Delhi, after being “exposed” by his administration, had agreed to lower the tariffs on the exports from the United States to India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, however, reacted cautiously and underlined that the proposed trade agreement itself was intended to bring down tariff and non-tariff barriers.
“India charges us massive tariffs. Massive. You can't even sell anything in India...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,” Trump said at the White House on Friday.
Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, told a TV news channel that India’s high tariffs on exports from the US required a rethinking of the relationship. He made the comment just a few days after the US president himself announced his plan to impose reciprocal tariffs on imports from India. New Delhi, however, refrained from reacting sharply but pointed out that Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already agreed to negotiate a bilateral multi-sector trade agreement.
Modi met Trump at the White House on February 13, and the two leaders agreed to negotiate a trade agreement. They set the target to conclude negotiations, at least for the first part of the agreement, by fall 2025.
Trump, however, again criticised India for imposing high tariffs on exports from the US while delivering an address to the American Congress on March 4. He then announced that the US would impose reciprocal tariffs on imports from India and other countries from April 2.
Trump made the announcement even as Commerce and Industries Minister Piyush Goyal was in Washington D.C. to set the stage for starting the negotiation for the trade deal.
“During PM’s visit to the US in February 2025, both sides announced plans to negotiate a mutually beneficial, multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement. The commerce and industries minister was in the US and met his counterparts,” Randhir Jaiswal, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists in New Delhi. “The two governments are in the process of advancing discussions on a multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement.”
“Our objective through the BTA is to strengthen and deepen the India-US two-way trade across the goods and services sector, increase market access, reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries,” added Jaiswal.