‘They tax us, we tax them,’ Trump issues fresh threat to India over ‘high tariffs’

US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to follow a tit-for-tat approach on what he termed India’s ‘high tax’ policy, criticising tariffs on imports from America as high as 100 per cent on some products.

"If they tax us, we tax them the same amount," Trump told reportersat his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday (Dec 16).

Trump’s remarks herald a confrontational stance towards India, alongside countries like Brazil, Mexico and China that he has criticised for high tariffs since being elected president on November 5.

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"The word reciprocal is important because if somebody charges us - India, we don't have to talk about our own - if India charges us 100 per cent, do we charge them nothing for the same? You know, they send in a bicycle, and we send them a bicycle. They charge us 100 and 200," he said.

"India charges a lot. Brazil charges a lot. If they want to charge us, that's fine, but we're going to charge them the same thing," he added, saying he would bring fairness to the US trade regime.

His comments were supported by the incoming commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, saying “reciprocity” would be central to the US trade policy going forward.

The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden said Tuesday (Dec 17) that it was leaving the US-India partnership "in a very strong place" and vowed to maintain a bipartisan support in the US Congress during the Trump administration 2.0 as well.

"We continue to be very ambitious about the US-India relationship. We've had very high-level engagement over the course of the last several months with the QUAD summit in Delaware, and we are anticipating a high-level engagement in the last few weeks of the Biden administration," said Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary of State.

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Trump has also vowed to take on Mexico, Canada and China unless they address concerns regarding the flow of illegal drugs, including fentanyl, and the movement of migrants across the US borders.

This stance may strain the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) agreement, according to observers.

(With inputs from agencies)