Leather, gems, jewellery to be impacted most after US's 50 pct tariff announcement

Donald Trump on Wednesday slapped an additional 25 per cent tariff, raising the total duties to 50 per cent on goods coming from India, as a penalty for New Delhi's continued purchase of Russian oil.

Trump on Wednesday announced an extra 25 percent tariff on India as a 'penalty' for the continued purchase of Russian crude oil.

He vowed similar measures against other countries that purchase, directly or indirectly, from that country and fund cash-strapped Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine.

Trump's latest tax crusader takes total duties on import of Indian goods into the United States to 50 percent - 20 per cent more than the tariff on China and 21 per cent more than on Pakistan.

In an executive order signed earlier in the day, Trump wrote, "I find the Government of India is currently, directly or indirectly, importing Russian Federation oil... in my judgement I determine it necessary to impose an ad valorem duty on imports of articles from India..."

The 50 percent tariff hit comes hours after angry comments about India-US trade relations.

"India has not been a good trading partner... we settled on 25 percent... but I think I'm going to raise that substantially over the next 24 hours because they're buying Russian oil," he told a US broadcaster.

The United States has imposed additional tariffs or penalties for Russian imports only on India while other buyers such as China and Turkey, have so far escaped such measures.

"The tariffs are expected to make Indian goods far costlier in the US, with potential to cut US-bound exports by 40-50 per cent," think tank GTRI said.

After the new tariff, it said, organic chemicals' exports to the US will attract an additional 54 per cent duty. The other sectors which will attract high duties include carpets (52.9 per cent), apparel - knitted (63.9 per cent), apparel - woven (60.3 per cent), textiles, made ups (59 per cent), diamonds, gold and products (52.1 per cent), machinery and mechanical appliances (51.3 per cent), furniture, bedding, mattresses (52.3 per cent).

The additional 25 per cent will be implemented by the US from August 27. These will be over and above the existing standard import duty in the US.

In its response, India has once again made it clear that it stands firm on its national interests following Trump's move to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on Russian oil imports and called the move "unfair and unjustified".

In a calm but strongly worded statement, New Delhi said the extra tariff was "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable" and declared that it would "take all actions necessary to protect national interests".

Within hours, the foreign ministry, in a statement, said the United States "has in recent days targeted India's oil imports from Russia".

"We have already made clear our position on these issues, including the fact that our imports are based on market factors and done with the overall objective of ensuring the energy security of 1.4 billion people of India. It is therefore extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest".

"We reiterate that these actions are unfair, unjustified and unreasonable. India will take all actions necessary to protect its national interests," the statement added in no uncertain terms.