Ministry of
Commercehas
announced to impose
retaliatory tariffs on US goods that will be effective
from June 16
onwards. The retaliatory tariffs on 29 goods imported from
the U.S. The Ministry initially decided to impose tariffs in 2018. The
decision is ahead of the meeting between Modi and Trump on the sidelines of
the G20 summit in
Japan.The move made by the trade ministry was approved by
the Ministry of
External Affairs.
The tariffs will be applied on $220-290 million worth of goods that
are imported from the US, and will have about the same impact as the tariffs
imposed by Washington on India in 2018.
Ministry
of Finance said that
the Commerce
ministry will release the official notification of the
tariffs before 16 June.
Why
India is imposing tarrifs:
In March 2018, the US imposed 25% tariff on steel and 10% import
duty on aluminium.
India was one of the major exporters of these items.
Trarrifs on 29 major products ere impacted which
includes Chickpeas, Bengal gram, Mansur dal, Boric acid, domestic reagents,
apples, Binders for foundry moulds. India repeatedly asked for exemption from
these higher tariffs, but US did not respond.
On June 2018, India decided to retaliate by imposing duties but
extended the deadline.
On 5 June 2019, the U.S. withdrew export
incentives to India under its Generalized
System of Preferences (GSP) programme. India was the largest beneficiary of
GSP.