Shashi Tharoor calls Trump's tariff ‘completely unreasonable,’ says India is ‘not out of options’ if…

After US President Donald Trump imposed a 25 per cent tariff on India, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor called the scenario a very "sirious " matter on Thursday (July 31). He said that the US tariff will "destroy" India's trade with America.

“It's a very serious matter for us... 25, plus an unspecified penalty for our buying oil and gas from Russia, it could take it up to 35-45... There's even talk of a 100% penalty, which will destroy our trade with America... The trade negotiations are underway, and there is a possibility that it may come down. If it doesn't, it will damage our exports, because America is a very big market for us,” Tharoor told ANI.

He said there was a need for the Trump administration to take India's “needs” into consideration as well. “On the other hand, if their demands are completely unreasonable, our negotiators have every right to resist... America also needs to understand its needs. Our tariffs on America are not that unreasonable. It's about 17% average. American goods are not priced competitively enough to sell in the Indian market,” Throor said.

The Congress MP called the India-US trade deal a challenging negotiation and said India is negotiating with many nations. The US is not the only negotiator. We have ongoing negotiations with the EU, we already concluded a deal with the UK, and we are talking with other countries also. If we can't compete in America, we may have to diversify our markets outside of America. We are not out of options,” Tharoor said.

He said that if Trump were entirely unreasonable with his demands, then India would have to move elsewhere. “That is the strength of India; we are not a totally export-dependent economy like China. We have a good and strong domestic market. We must give strong support to our negotiators to find the best deal possible. If a good deal is not possible, we may have to walk away..." Throor told the news agency.