Starting from April 1, it is very well possible that India will impose higher retaliatory duties on 29 goods imported from the US. This latest development is likely to jeopardise the substantive package that New Delhi and Washington were working on to resolve trade issues.
In June last year, India had decided to impose higher tariffs on a slew of items, including apples, almonds, and boric acid in retaliation to the US raising customs duties on certain steel and aluminium products. New Delhi, however, deferred implementation of the decision as talks were going on between the two sides for a trade package.
“We will wait for the April 1 deadline and then impose the higher tariffs,” said officials. In March 2018, the Trump administration had announced heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items, although they haven’t been imposed yet.
As per the report, New Delhi is expected to let the tariffs come into effect even if it has maintained that retaliatory tariffs are a different issue and no knee-jerk reactions are justified. With the new duties, import duty on walnuts would go up to 120 percent, while the duties on lentils would be hiked to 40 percent from 30 percent.
India’s counter-levy was to come into force from August 4 but has been deferred every month since then. “When the US has decided to withdraw the export benefits and the impact on India is marginal, then we should take it forward and impose higher tariffs on their products,” an expert on trade issues has said.
Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan on Tuesday said: “India exported goods worth USD 5.6 billion under GSP last year, but our total GSP duty reduction benefits were to the tune of only USD 190 million.
