Trump Says India Has Agreed To Cut 'Massive' Tariffs

By Shakir Husain

NEW DELHI, March 8 (Bernama) -- India has agreed to reduce "massive" tariffs on American products, United States President Donald Trump said.

He called the Indian market "restrictive".

"India charges us massive tariffs. Massive. You can't even sell anything into India," Trump said in remarks at the White House on Friday.

"They have agreed, by the way, to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them for what they have done," he added.

The US president in his remarks also criticised Canada, China, and the European Union on the tariff issue.

Meanwhile, India's Ministry of External Affairs said that India and the US are discussing a deal to promote trade by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers.

"The two governments are in the process of advancing discussions on a multi-sector bilateral trade agreement (BTA)," ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a media briefing on Friday.

"Our objective through the BTA is to strengthen and deepen India-US two-way trade across goods and services, increase market access, reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries. So, that is how we look at the issue of tariff as far as India-US (trade) is concerned," he said.

-- BERNAMA