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US President Donald Trump has imposed additional 25 percent tariffs on Indian goods, taking effect before the earlier imposed initial duties for New Delhi's continuous purchase of Russian crude oil and military equipment. Reacting to the move, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that it could severely impact India's exports to America. Â
While talking to the reporters, Tharoor said, "I don't think that's particularly good news for us, and that takes our total tariffs to 50 percent. Then that's going to make our goods unaffordable to a lot of people in America."Â
The Thirunvananthapuram MP also highlighted the benefits that India's competitors will avail from lower tax regimes. He said, "In particular, when you are looking at these percentages, you have to compare them with the tariffs being levied on some of our competitors. I am afraid that if you look at people like Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, even Bangladesh, and Pakistan have lower tariffs than us. Then, ultimately, people will not be buying goods from us in America if they can buy them cheaper elsewhere. So that's not very good for our exports to America."Â
Tharoor also stated the urgent need for India to diversify its export needs. Adding, "This means we need to very seriously diversify to other countries and other markets that may be interested in what we have to offer. We now have an FTA with the UK. We are talking to the EU. There are many countries in which hopefully, we would be able to, but in the short term, it is definitely a blow."Â
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order, with which he has imposed an additional tariff on Indian goods, less than 14 hours before the initial duties come into effect from today, August 7.Â
With this new order, the total tariffs now stand at 50%, only exempting a small number of products. The initial tariffs are set to be implemented from August 7, while the additional 25 percent will come into effect after 21 days.Â
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