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The US President has repeatedly claimed that India is a “tariff king” and imposes “tremendously high” tariffs on American products.
Addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Saturday, Trump said: “We have a case where a certain country, India, is charging us… what great country, great friend, Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi — charging us over 100 per cent for many things”.
The United States, he said, is charging India “nothing for similar or same” products.
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He cited India as a country other than China which imposes high tariffs on American products.
India, he alleged, continues to wage “stupid trade” and unfair trade practices, and called out PM Modi for the trade imbalance with the US.
“I have Senators who say, you can’t do that. It’s not free trade. When did they come from? Where did they come from? It’s not free trade,” he said, ramping up his rhetoric against India’s trade and tariff policies.
He asked his senior administration officials to work on this.
“Will you please work on them? It’s the craziest thing. It’s stupid trade. We have so much stupid trade,” Trump said.
He said that as a result of such trades, the US has lost for many years now — USD 800 billion a year on trade.
“Who the hell makes these deals? Those are not good negotiators. Actually, Democrats made a lot of them though. But Republicans met a lot of up too, that’s the amazing thing. They made USD 800 billion. But we’re getting it back. We”ll get to give back. We’re going to be getting a lot of it.
“I have to be a little bit politically correct by saying it”s ok if we lose USD 20 billion with a country because we want to be nice. We want to be nice with everyone,” Trump said, asserting that his administration is cracking down on countries that cheat.