India imposes higher import duties on US products

As the trade war spiked by President Donald Trump of the United States of America rages, India has joined the fray by imposing higher duties on several goods imported from the United States in retaliation to Trump imposing hefty tariff on steel and aluminium imports. The goods include steel, iron, and farm products such as lentils and Bengal gram. Some of the new rates will be effective immediately, and others from August 4, the Finance Ministry said in a notification. Chickpeas and Bengal gram will have a 60 per cent import duty, and lentils will be charged 30 per cent.

The import duty on boric acid will be 7.5 per cent. Last week, India had submitted a list of 30 items to the World Trade Organisation, saying it could increase customs duties by up to 50 per cent in retaliation against the United States’ decision. In the final notified list, the government has excluded motorcycles, for which the duties would remain the same. On March 9, Donald Trump had imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items, leading to fears of a global trade war.

An unidentified official told PTI last week that the United States would collect 241 million dollars (Rs 1,650 crore) worth of duties by hiking tariffs on certain steel and aluminium items from India “we also proposed to withdraw concessions of similar amount from these 30 products imported by India from the US”. The European Union on Wednesday decided to charge higher import duties on several products it imports from the US. China also said on Thursday it is “fully prepared” to respond to any new list of US tariffs, Bloomberg reported. China had earlier said  it would impose tariffs on up to 600 items.