After US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that the United States will "very substantially" raise tariffs on Indian imports within the next 24 hours, citing India's continued purchase of Russian oil, former Maharashtra minister and Shiv Sena UBT leader sought clarification from the Commerce Ministry over the ongoing trade deal with the US.
Responding to Donald Trump's fresh tariff threat, Aaditya said a strong response should be given to the US from the Centre.
Speaking to news agency ANI, Aaditya said, "The government is not even officially responding through ministers to such statements. They are only issuing statements. The problem is that no one from our ministers in the Union Government is speaking, and that is why India is feeling helpless and voiceless today."
"Ideally, a strong response should have been given by one of the ministers from the government," he said.
Seeking clarification from the Commerce Ministry over the ongoing trade deal with the US, the Shiv Sena leader said, "The Commerce Minister should tell us whether the trade deal is going on at all or not. That is the clarification India needs. Otherwise, businesses are getting affected, the common man is getting affected, our economy is getting adversely affected."
Taking a jibe at the BJP's touted "Modi-Trump" friendship, he said, "They (PM Modi and US President Trump) are best friends, but I don't know whether the friendship is going anywhere. Yesterday was Friendship Day."
Aaditya's response comes hours after Trump accused India of āfueling the war machineā by buying oil from Moscow and threatened to raise the tariffs on Indian imports.
Trump told CNBC in an interview, "With India, what people don't like to say about India, they are the highest tariff nation. They have the highest tariff from anybody. We do very very little business with India because their tariffs are so high."
He further said, "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 percent but I think I'm going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they're buying Russian oil and fueling the war machine, if they are gonna do that, I am not gonna be happy."
