Donald Trump thinks India may cut tariffs, but keeps reciprocal duties threat alive

US President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his confidence that India will lower the trade tariffs it imposes on American goods, adding that his administration will impose the same charges on New Delhi, starting April 2.

Speaking to Breitbart News, the President said that he has a “very good relationship” with India but that New Delhi has too many high tariffs on the United States.

“I have a very good relationship with India, but the only problem I have with India is they’re one of the highest-tariffing nations in the world. I believe they’re going to probably going to be lowering those tariffs substantially, but on April 2, we will be charging them the same tariffs they charge us,” Trump said.

Just weeks into his second term, Trump has upended global trade once again. Labelling both allies and rivals as perpetrators of ‘unfair’ practices, he announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs — with India among the target nations.

Trump, who had previously derided India as the “tariff king”, has called the import levies imposed by New Delhi “very unfair and strong”.

“Whatever India charges, we charge them,” Trump said in a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing next to him.

Last week, Trump reignited his attack on India’s “massive tariffs”, slamming New Delhi’s trade policies as overly restrictive.

“You can’t sell anything into India, it is almost restrictive. They have agreed, by the way, they want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them for what they have done,” he had said.

Meanwhile, India has said that it has made no commitments on trade tariff reductions to the United States. Last week, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal informed a Parliamentary panel that negotiations between India and the US were still ongoing and that no trade agreement had been finalised.

“One cannot go by the US President’s claims and on media reports as the bilateral trade agreement talks between the two nations are still on. India has not committed to anything on trade tariffs to the US,” he had said.

Meanwhile, some reports claim that India has sought time until September 2025 to resolve the issue repeatedly raised by the American President.