WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has said that he made it clear to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India will not be spared from Washington’s reciprocal tariffs, emphasising that “nobody can argue with me” on tariff structure.Trump made these remarks during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity recently. Fox News aired a joint television interview with President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday night.On February 13, hours before Prime Minister Modi’s bilateral meeting with Trump in the White House, the US President announced reciprocal tariffs.Under the plan, the Trump administration “will work strenuously to counter non-reciprocal trading arrangements with trading partners by determining the equivalent of a reciprocal tariff with respect to each foreign trading partner.”During the interview with Hannity, Trump reiterated his stance on existing tariff structures between the US and its partners, including India.”I told Prime Minister Modi yesterday – he was here – I said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do: reciprocal. Whatever you charge, I’m charging,'” President Trump said.”He (Modi) goes, ‘No, no, I don’t like that.’ ‘No, no, whatever you charge, I’m going to charge.’ I’m doing that with every country.”India has very strong tariffs on certain imports from the US. Like in the automobile sector, India charges 100 per cent.Musk said, ” It’s 100 per cent – auto imports are 100 per cent.””Yeah, that’s peanuts. So, much higher. And — and others too. I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do: reciprocal. Whatever you charge, I’m charging,” Trump said.Under the reciprocal tariff system, the US would impose the same level of tariffs on Indian imports as India does on American goods.”Nobody can argue with me,” President Trump insisted. “If I said 25 per cent, they’d say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible.’ I don’t say that anymore… because I say, ‘Whatever they charge, we’ll charge.’ And you know what? They stop.”
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