Washington DC: US President Donald Trump criticised the high tariffs charged by India and other countries including China, calling it "very unfair" and announcing reciprocal tariffs will kick in from next month.
The president made his case for his reciprocal tariffs, which will commence April 2. He wants to impose the same tariff on imports from foreign countries as those nations impose on us exports.
"Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades and now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries. On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, - Mexico and Canada - Have you heard of them -and countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them. It's very unfair," Trump said Tuesday night in an address to the Joint Session of the Congress, the first of his second term in the White House.
"India charges us auto tariffs higher than 100%," he continued.
In February, President Trump has said that his administration will "soon" impose reciprocal tariffs on countries such as India and China, reiterating what he had said during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US capital last month.
Trump has made it clear to Prime Minister Modi that India will not be spared from Washington's reciprocal tariffs and emphasised that "nobody can argue with me" on tariff structure.
"China's average tariff on our products is twice... and South Korea's average tariff is four times higher. Think of that, four times higher. And we give so much help militarily and in so many other ways to South Korea. But that's what happens. This is happening by friend and foe. This system is not fair to the United States. It never was," he said.
Trump added that from April 2, reciprocal tariffs will kick in, and whatever "they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them. That's reciprocal back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax them. If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market.
"They don't even allow us in their market. We will take in trillions and trillions of dollars that create jobs like we have never seen before. I did it with China, and I did it with others, and the Biden administration couldn't do anything about it because there was so much money they couldn't do anything about it." "We have been ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth, and we will not let that happen any longer," Trump said.
