India vows to avoid protectionist signals on trade

NEW DELHI: India does not want to offer any indication that it is mercantilist, the best official in the banking department said, after slashing buy duties on high-end motorcycles, amid US President Donald Trump’s moves on tariffs.

Trump sparked a trade war by imposing massive taxes on Canada, Mexico, and China the day before Sunday’s comment. None were directed at India, despite Trump’s plan last year calling it a tax offender.

” We don’t want to offer everyone any sign that we would like to be protectionist”, Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey told Reuters. ” Our position is that we don’t want to improve security”.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Trump this month, industry and immigration issues will be at the forefront.

After India claimed that India’s continued high taxes, which had hurt British companies, it has been trying to appease the Trump administration.

Trump’s presidency has raised the bar by just bringing up the issue of undocumented Indians living in the United States, a subject on which the Indian foreign government has stated it is in talks with US regulators.

In its Saturday budget, which Pandey claimed also reduced its average level of taxes from 13 % to 30 %, India reduced custom duties on riders with engines of 1,600 mm or more on fully-built exports.

According to Pandey,” We should send the right message to the world, as well as to our individual business,” adding that the tariff measures were intended to primarily support local businesses but may eventually be phased out as those industries developed.