India's applied tariff on US goods is only 7-8%: Piyush Goyal

At a time the world is trying to come to terms with the reciprocal tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on 60 countries, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has defended tariffs levied by India and stated that India's applied tariffs on US goods were only about 7-8 per cent.

"If you look at the United States for example, while our overall tariff may be 17 per cent, a lot of it is on products which we don't import at all. Our applied tariff to the United States is probably 7 or 8 per cent," Goyal said speaking at the India Global Forum.

Before the reciprocal tariffs were announced, the White House had said that the simple average US tariff rates were at 3.3 per cent, compared with India's 17 per cent.

Goyal said that India's tariffs were more to do with protection against unfair trade practices and he singled out China for such practices and dumping products.

He also wondered how the tariffs would be administered considering China had circumvented earlier tariffs by routing goods through other countries.

He also categorically stated that India wouldn't allow Chinese companies to invest in India until it was convinced they would follow the rules of the game. He was responding to a question on whether a company like BYD would be accepted in India while India laid out the red carpet for Tesla.

"We need to be convinced that they will work by the rules of the game," stressed Goyal.

"Several unfair practices are gradually coming to light as more and more companies come to us with what's happening, the kind of dumping that's happening in steel, for example. As we understand how they're doing third-country subsidization... As these practices come to light, we have to be cautious about whom we allow to invest in the country. We have to be cautious about our strategic interests, our security interests," he noted.

India and the United States have been in active dialogue about a bilateral trade deal. Goyal didn't specify when a deal was likely to be done. He pointed to the trade agreement India has with Australia and the UAE and said it was in talks with many such countries, but reiterated the importance of fair trade.

"We are in active dialogue with many other countries and a group of countries. So we are a country that believes bilaterally. We can work together with countries which have fair trade practices," he said.

Goyal added that India had a lot of "elbow room" in working with developed countries and countries where it finds equal opportunity to do trade.

Goyal said that the tariff war could lead to some short-term turmoil, but sees this as a phase of re-globalisation and not de-globalisation.

He further stated that India believed in converting every crisis into an opportunity.