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Trump Says India’s Move to Hike Tariffs ‘No Longer Acceptable’

This was Trump’s second tweet in three weeks describing India’s decision to raise tariffs as unacceptable.

Trump Says India’s Move to Hike Tariffs ‘No Longer Acceptable’
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on “America’s environmental leadership” during an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. (Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) --

U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized India’s decision to impose higher tariffs on a slew of American goods, days before his trade officials are scheduled to start talks with their counterparts in the South Asian country.

“India has long had a field day putting tariffs on American products," President Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday. "No longer acceptable!”

This was Trump’s second tweet in three weeks describing India’s decision to raise tariffs as unacceptable. Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to restart trade negotiations after they met at the Group of 20 summit in Japan.

A team from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is scheduled to visit New Delhi later this week for talks stalled earlier over tariffs and revoked trade preferences for India. The U.S. is also challenging India’s retaliatory tariffs in a new case at the World Trade Organization.

India is expected to highlight efforts to correct the trade imbalance with the U.S. -- New Delhi’s trade surplus with Washington fell sharply to $17.12 billion in the year ended March 31 from $21.26 billion a year ago, according to trade ministry data.

India imposed higher tariffs on almost 30 American products in response to Trump’s decision on June 1 to end trade concessions on $6.3 billion of Indian goods shipped to the U.S. India had repeatedly deferred imposing the new tariffs after announcing them last year as it kept the door open for talks to avert a trade war.

India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry was not immediately available for comment.

--With assistance from Shruti Srivastava.

To contact the reporter on this story: Archana Chaudhary in New Delhi at achaudhary2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Pradeep Kurup

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