Indian solar to USA: US President Donald Trump has decided to impose initial duties of 126 percent on solar imports from India. This step may jeopardize the ongoing trade agreement between India and America.
The US Commerce Department imposed this duty because it felt that India unfairly subsidized its domestic solar panel manufacturing, making Indian products cheaper than American manufacturers. Apart from this, the department fixed the initial fee at 86 to 143 percent for Indonesia and 81 percent for Laos.
Impact on India-US trade agreement
This decision has come at a time when a few weeks ago New Delhi and Washington had decided the framework of the India-US trade agreement. There was a provision to reduce the earlier tariff on Indian exports from 50 percent to 18 percent. Earlier, the US Supreme Court had declared Donald Trump’s old tariffs unconstitutional. After this, Donald Trump imposed a 10 percent baseline duty on most imports under the new rule and threatened to increase it to 15 percent.
This new policy makes it clear that “America First” policy is the first priority for America, even if strategic trade agreements are left behind for this. For this reason, Indian and American officials have also postponed the three-day meeting scheduled this week.
(News is being updated…)
