The Congress party on Friday demanded an explanation from the government regarding the potential impact of the US Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs on the recently announced India-US trade deal.
Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram remarked that he had previously warned that if the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariff policy, the US and India would likely revert to the status quo ante before April 2, 2025.
“The US has extracted several concessions from India without conceding any. What will happen to those concessions? The joint statement announced Zero tariff on many goods that the US will export to India; that India intends to import USD 500 billion worth of goods from the US; that India will not buy Russian oil; that India will address the non-tariff barriers to US goods, and so on. What will happen to those promises?” the former finance minister asked in a post on social media.
Chidambaram also questioned what the Indian delegation, currently in the US to finalise the Framework Agreement, would do in light of the court’s decision.
Earlier this month, the US and India announced a framework for an Interim Agreement, under which Washington would reduce reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods from 25 per cent to 18 per cent, while India would impose zero tariffs on US goods.
However, in a 6-3 ruling on Friday, the US Supreme Court held that Trump’s expansive tariffs on imports from nearly all US trading partners violated federal law. The court also stated that the President lacked authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose such broad import duties.
Congress leader Pawan Khera alleged that the Modi government rushed into a “one-sided” trade deal with the US. “Haste is the work of the devil. If India had waited just 18 more days, we may not have found ourselves cornered into a one-sided, anti-India trade deal,” he said.
In a post on X, Khera questioned why Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a late-night call to Washington on February 2 and why the government abandoned its initial strategy of waiting for the Supreme Court's ruling.
“Is it the disclosure by General Manoj Mukund Naravane? Is it the shadow of the Jeffrey Epstein files? Is it the U.S. criminal case involving Gautam Adani? Or is it all of the above? Today, the Congress has been redeemed: Narendra Modi is compromised,” he added.
Randeep Surjewala, another Congress leader, also questioned the sustainability and relevance of the newly proposed US tariff measures on India in light of the Supreme Court ruling.