Donald Trump Threatens to Impose ‘Reciprocal’ Tax on India

US President-elect Donald Trump has come down heavily on import tariffs and has threatened to impose retaliatory taxes on countries like India and Brazil in reciprocation to higher tariffs they levied on the import of certain American goods, PTI reported.

Speaking at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump said, “Reciprocal. If they tax us, we tax them the same amount. They tax us. We tax them. And they tax us. Almost in all cases, they're taxing us, and we haven't been taxing them.”

He added, “The word reciprocal is important because if somebody charges us — India, we don't have to talk about our own — if India charges us 100 per cent, do we charge them nothing for the same? You know, they send in a bicycle and we send them a bicycle. They charge us 100 and 200. India charges a lot. Brazil charges a lot. If they want to charge us, that's fine, but we're going to charge them the same thing.”

‘Leaving India-US relationship In Very Good Place’

Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary of State, told reporters that the outgoing administration of Joe Biden is leaving the India-US relationship “in a very strong place”. He expressed optimism stating that it would continue under the Trump-led administration as well, PTI reported.

Campbell said, “We are quite confident that we'll be handing the bilateral relationship off to the incoming Trump team at its strongest possible apex, with key support from stakeholders in the industry, in technology, in finance and defence. As we were here today, it was inspirational to see the manifestations of engagement between the United States and India in critical endeavours associated with space.”