Trump threatens rise in India tariff in 24 hours

 

 

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump on Tuesday said India has not been a good trading partner and announced that he will raise the tariffs on New Delhi “very substantially” over the next 24 hours because it is buying Russian oil. “With India, what people don’t like to say about India, they’re the highest tariff nation. They have the highest tariff of anybody. We do very, very little business with India because their tariffs are so high,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC Squawk Box. “India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25% (tariff), but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil. They’re fuelling the war machine. And if they’re going to do that, then I’m not going to be happy,” US President Donald Trump added.

 

When asked about the trade deal with India that seemed imminent, Trump said the “sticking point” with India is that its tariffs are too high. “Now I will say this, India went from the highest tariffs ever, they will give us zero tariffs….But that’s not good enough, because of what they’re doing with oil.” A day earlier, Trump said he will “substantially” raise US tariffs on India, accusing the country of buying massive amounts of Russian oil and selling it for big profits. Hours later, India mounted an unusually sharp counterattack on the US and the European Union for their “unjustified and unreasonable” targeting of New Delhi for its procurement of Russian crude oil. Firmly rejecting the criticism, India pointed out the double standards in targeting it on the issue and said both the US and the EU are continuing their trade relations with Russia. “Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

 

The Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy, but also fertilisers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel, and machinery and transport equipment, the MEA said. “Where the US is concerned, it continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilisers as well as chemicals,” it added. “In this background, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable. Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,” the MEA said. On August 1, Trump signed an Executive Order titled ‘Further Modifying The Reciprocal Tariff Rates’, raising tariffs for over five dozen countries, including a steep 25 per cent for India. The executive order, however, did not mention the “penalty” that Trump had said India will have to pay because of its purchases of Russian military equipment and energy.

 

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, in an interview to Fox News Sunday, stated that President Trump has said very clearly that “it is not acceptable for India to continue financing” the Ukraine war by purchasing oil from Russia. Last week, Trump mounted a sharp attack on India and Russia for their close ties and said the two countries can take their “dead economies down together”, a remark which prompted New Delhi to say that India is the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Trump had earlier announced a 25 per cent tariff on imports of Indian goods along with an unspecified “penalty” for buying “vast majority” of Russian military equipment and crude oil. Declaring that the US has a massive trade deficit with India, Trump had said that while “India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the world, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any country. “Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of energy, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to stop the killing in Ukraine — All things not good!” Trump had said.

 

 

THE Trump administration is implementing a pilot programme under which foreign visitors arriving in the US on tourist or business visas could be required to pay a “bond” of up to USD 15,000 to ensure they don’t overstay their visas. The countries that would come under the purview of the programme have not been announced yet. The US State Department has issued a ‘temporary final rule’ under which a 12-month long visa bond pilot programme will be started. The State Department said that under this pilot programme, foreign individuals applying for the B-1/B-2 visas to come into the US for business or tourism could be required to post a bond of up to USD 15,000. The Department said that the rule is described as a “key pillar of the Trump administration’s foreign policy to protect the United States from the clear national security threat posed by visa overstays and deficient screening and vetting”. “Individuals applying for visas as temporary visitors for business or pleasure (B-1/B-2) and who are nationals of countries identified by the Department as having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or offering Citizenship by Investment, if the alien obtained citizenship with no residency requirement, may be subject to the pilot programme,” the department said in a public notice.

 

It said consular officers may require covered nonimmigrant visa “applicants to post a bond of up to USD 15,000 as a condition of visa issuance, as determined by the consular officers”. The pilot programme, expected to start this month, will be effective till August 5, 2026. The pilot programme appears to be part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, a key agenda of the US president’s electoral run and his second term in the White House. The public notice states that over the years, it has been found that hundreds of thousands of nonimmigrant visitors do not depart the US timely and overstay their visas. While the public notice does not mention which countries will come under the purview of the programme, it said that the State Department will announce the covered countries within at least 15 days before the pilot programme takes effect and this list will be amended as required. “In announcing the covered countries, the Department will also provide a brief explanation of the basis for requiring bonds consistent with this rule,” it said.

 

“The pilot programme is further designed to serve as a diplomatic tool to encourage foreign governments to take all appropriate actions to ensure robust screening and vetting for all citizens in matters of identity verification and public safety… and to encourage specified countries with visa overstays to ensure their nationals timely depart the United States after making temporary visits.” The public notice said that by its design and intention, the pilot programme is a “tool of diplomacy, intended to encourage foreign governments to take immediate action to reduce the overstay rates of their nationals when travelling to the United States for temporary visits”.

 

The notice also cites estimates by the Department of Homeland Security, which said that in the DHS FY 2023 Overstay Report, data indicated there were over 500,000 “suspected in-country overstays, - individuals who remained in the country past the end of their authorised stay and had yet to depart the country - among nonimmigrants admitted through air or sea ports of entry”. Through the programme, the Department seeks to send a message to all countries to take immediate action to encourage their nationals to comply with US immigration law, it said.