Trump's tariffs will worry India, but wait, there’s more
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The return of Donald Trump to the US presidency has raised fears worldwide of a trade war. Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to raise tariffs on US imports, arguing that cheap imports were threatening American jobs.
This was not an idle threat. In his first term, Trump raised tariffs sharply on a range of goods. While China was the prime target, these tariffs affected several countries, including India.
The additional tariffs, in the range of 10-50%, affected imports worth $283 billion into the US, according to an article by Mary Amiti and others in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. For example in 2019, average tariffs on Chinese and Indian imports into the US doubled and tripled, respectively, to about 8%. This resulted in a trade war with several countries, including China and India, which imposed retaliatory tariffs on US goods.
Such measures by the US are not just a Trump speciality. This May the Democrat administration, through its US trade representative, proposed an increase in tariffs on battery parts, electric vehicles, face masks, semiconductors and solar cells by 25-100%. Under Trump, the number of tariff lines (essentially, specific commodities) for China for which tariffs were 25% or more increased from 196 in 2017 to 280 by 2019.
India was also a target of Trump’s tariffs. Besides an increase in average tariffs on Indian imports, the number of tariff lines subject to tariffs of 25% or more rose from 99 in 2016 to 146 by 2019. Also read | Data dive: Should RBI let the rupee fall? When the Trump imposed additional tariffs on Indian goods in 2018-19, the country retaliated, like many others.
Read more on livemint.com
