White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro explained on Thursday why the United States targeted India with a 50% tariff for buying Russian oil and not China, even though the latter buys more oil than India.
“They [China] have not been targeted for that. So why is India having these tariffs?” the reporter asked.
In response, Navarro said the US wants to impose tariffs on China without hurting its own economy.
“As the boss says, let’s see what happens. Keep in mind that we have over 50 per cent tariffs on China already. We have over 50 per cent tariffs on China, so we don’t want to get to a point where we actually hurt ourselves. And I think I’ve given a really good answer to that,” Navarro said, as per C-SPAN.
His statement came after the Trump administration issued an executive order imposing an additional 25 per cent tariff on India for importing oil from Russia, which took the overall tariff on Indian goods to 50 per cent.
“We settled on 25 per cent but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil,” Trump said on Tuesday in a CNBC interview.
The additional 25 per cent tariff on India would go into effect 21 days after the signing of the order, meaning that both India and Russia might have time to negotiate with the administration on the import taxes.
‘Indian tariffs very different from reciprocal tariffs’
Justifying the United States’ 50% tariff on Indian goods, the White House trade adviser said on Thursday that “the rationale for the Indian tariffs is very different from the reciprocal tariffs”.
In a statement to C-SPAN, he explained that the tariff on Indian products coming to the US “was a pure national security issue associated with India’s abject refusal to stop buying Russian oil”.
‘Maharaja of tariffs’
Navarro criticised India’s trade practices, calling it the “maharaja of tariffs” for maintaining some of the highest tariffs and non-tariff barriers on American goods.
“You start with the fact that India is the maharaja of tariffs,” he said. The White House official noted that President Donald Trump had drawn a clear line between economic and national security.
Navarro went on to highlight the “connection between economic security and national security”.
“That’s got to stop. That math doesn’t work. The president understands the connection between economic security and national security. So that was the bottom line there,” Navarro said.
