Washington: United States of America President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an Executive Order imposing an additional 25 per cent tariff on imports from India in response to New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil.According to the order issued by the White House, Trump cited matters of national security and foreign policy concerns, as well as other relevant trade laws, for the increase, claiming that India’s imports of Russian oil, directly or indirectly, pose an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States.After the order, the total tariff on Indian goods will be 50 per cent. While the initial duty becomes effective on August 7, the additional levy will come into effect after 21 days and will be imposed on all Indian goods imported into the US, except for goods already in transit or those meeting specific exemptions.The Executive Order also allows for modifications based on changing circumstances, including potential retaliation by other countries or steps taken by Russia or India to address the national emergency.”Accordingly, and as consistent with applicable law, articles of India imported into the customs territory of the United States shall be subject to an additional ad valorem rate of duty of 25 per cent,” the order stated.
This rate of duty shall be effective with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time 21 days after the date of this order, except for goods that (1) were loaded onto a vessel at the port of loading and in transit on the final mode of transit prior to entry into the United States before 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time 21 days after the date of this order,” the order added.Earlier on Tuesday, Trump, hours after he mentioned raising tariffs on India, said he would increase the tariff charged on imports from India from the current rate of 25 per cent “very substantially” over the next 24 hours due to New Delhi’s continued purchases of Russian oil.Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi ridiculed the Centre after Trump announced the additional tariff for India. In a post on X, Chaturvedi wrote, “Additional 25% over the earlier 25%. Is India the highest tariffed nation in the world now? Maybe India’s Trade Minister will tell us (sic).”Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said it was not good news for India. “I don’t think that’s particularly good news for us and that takes our total tariffs to 50 per cent then that’s going to make our goods unaffordable to a lot of people in America and in particularly when you’re looking at these percentages you have to compare them with the tariffs being levied on some of our competitors,” Tharoor was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.”I’m afraid that if you look at countries 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. 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 United Kingdom. We are talking to the European Union. There are many countries in which hopefully we would be able to, but in the short term, it is definitely a blow,” he said