During the first address of his second term in a joint session of the Congress, United States President Donald Trump defended his harsh tariff policy, reiterating that the US has been facing high tariffs from several countries across the world, including India.
“If you don’t make your product in America under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff, and in some cases, a rather large one. Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades and now it’s our turn to start using them against those other countries,” Trump said during his address.
Trump listed out countries who he said charge the US “tremendous amount of tariffs” which included India. “On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada …have you heard of them? And countless other nations charge us tremendously high tariffs than we charge them,” Trump said.
“It’s very unfair,” he added.
Singling out India during the speech, Trump said, “India charges us auto tariffs higher than 100 percent.”
“China’s average tariff on our products is twice what we charge them and South Korea’s average tariff is four times higher,” he further said.
Trump announced that the United States will impose reciprocal tariffs on several nations, starting April 2 and not April 1, since he didn’t want it to coincide with “April Fools Day”.
“On April 2nd, I wanted to make it April 1st but didn’t want it to be accused of April Fools day… it’s a lot of money…April 2nd reciprocal tariffs kick in, whatever they tariff us, we will tariff them, a reciprocal back and forth… if they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, we will do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market,” Trump said during his speech.
Trump’s reciprocal tariffs announcement was met with a thunderous standing ovation by his loyalists in the house.
The announcements come after the United States on Tuesday decided to go through with its punishing 25 percent tariffs on its neighbouring countries and two of its biggest trade partners – Canada and Mexico. The US also doubled tariffs on Chinese goods from 10 percent to 20 percent on Tuesday, citing lack of action from China on its alleged role in fentanyl production.
