New Delhi: The United States has revised downwards the import duties to be imposed on India from 27% to 26%, according to a White House document. These duties will come into force from April 9.
While announcing the reciprocal tariffs against different countries on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump held up a chart that showed the tariffs that countries such as India, China, the UK, and the European Union will now have to pay.
The chart indicated that India charged 52% tariffs, including currency manipulation and trade barriers, and America would now charge India a discounted reciprocal tariff of 26%.
Earlier, the White House documents showed a 27% duty on India.
However, as per the latest updates, it has been revised downwards to 26%.
When asked, industry experts said 1% would not have much of an impact.
From 2021-22 to 2023-24, the US was India’s largest trading partner. The US accounts for about 18% of India’s total goods exports, 6.22% in imports, and 10.73% in bilateral trade.
With America, India had a trade surplus (the difference between imports and exports) of $35.32 billion in goods in 2023-24. This was $27.7 billion in 2022-23, $32.85 billion in 2021-22, $22.73 billion in 2020-21, and $17.26 billion in 2019-20.
In 2024, India’s main exports to the US included drug formulations and biologicals ($8.1 billion), telecom instruments ($6.5 billion), precious and semi-precious stones ($5.3 billion), petroleum products ($4.1 billion), gold and other precious metal jewellery ($3.2 billion), ready-made garments of cotton, including accessories ($2.8 billion), and products of iron and steel ($2.7 billion).
Imports included crude oil ($4.5 billion), petroleum products ($3.6 billion), coal, coke ($3.4 billion), cut and polished diamonds ($2.6 billion), electric machinery ($1.4 billion), aircraft, spacecraft and parts ($1.3 billion), and gold ($1.3 billion).
