Washington: Having imposed a flat 25% tariff on India last week, Donald Trump had threatened to raise the rate as India is continuing to buy Russian oil and “doesn’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine.”
India and Russia reacted sharply, condemning the threat to hike tariff rate, but that has had no impact on Trump’s thought process.
On Tuesday, the US President announced plans to “substantially” raise tariffs on Indian imports within the next 24 hours.
“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 per cent, but I think I’m going to raise that rate quite substantially in the next 24 hours,” Trump told CNBC.
“They are buying Russian oil and fuelling the war machine. And if they are going to do that, I’m not going to be happy,” the American President added.