New York sources stated that at
a meeting on Thursday with Republican lawmakers and his officials on the
Reciprocal Trade Act he is proposing, he listed the tariffs on several items
when they are imported into the US and exported by it to other countries as
examples of unfairness. Meanwhile he said "India,
as an example, has a 150% hard to believe tariff on whiskey. They make whiskey,
and they sell it to us. We charge them zero. We sell it to them; they charge us
150%. So I would say, other than that, it's a very fair deal. Okay?".
Furthermore he did not say if he was going to
hike duty on Indian whiskey to match what India charges on US import. Reportedly
he also brought up India's duty on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, one of his pet
peeves that he has aired several times. Apparently Trump's remarks
about India are meant for his voter base. Kentucky is the major US
producer of whiskey and he carried it with over 62 percent of the votes in the
2016 elections.
Moreover Trump blamed his predecessors for the overall trade deficit of $800 billion and said "The Reciprocal Trade Act will give us the tools to solve this problem once and for all."If India dropped the tariffs on the larger motorcycles that are charged 50 percent tariff, not Harley-Davidson, but others that don't manufacture in India will benefit, contrary to Trump's expectations.
