President Donald Trump criticized the longstanding trade dynamic between India and the United States, while signaling a potential breakthrough in trade negotiations with the South Asian country.
‘Totally One-Sided Relationship’
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump slammed what he described as a “totally one-sided relationship” between the United States and India, arguing that “we do very little business with India,” while they conduct a “tremendous” amount of trade with the U.S.
“In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest ';client,' but we sell them very little,” he said, attributing this imbalance to India’s historically high tariffs on U.S. exports.
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The post also took aim at India purchasing crude oil and defense equipment from Russia, and “very little from the U.S.,” leading him to refer to America’s trade relationship with India as a “totally one-sided disaster.”
In 2024, the U.S. and India recorded $212.3 billion in total trade across goods and services, with the United States running a $45.8 billion deficit in goods but maintaining a $102 million surplus in services, according to data from the United States Trade Representative.
India Offers To Cut Tariffs To ‘Nothing’
Trump also says in his post that India is now offering to eliminate the tariffs that it has imposed on American goods to “nothing.” However, he says, that this offer is too late, adding that “they should have done so years ago.”
Last week, the two nations resumed talks in a virtual 2+2 Intersessional Dialogue, as the 50% tariffs on Indian imports took effect mid-week, leading to a potential $36 billion, or 0.9% of India’s annualized GDP.
Economist Peter Schiff had warned early last month that Trump’s move to double tariffs on India could expose American consumers “as a paper tiger.” He said this while warning of a dollar crash that could “impoverish Americans but enrich foreign consumers, particularly the BRICs,” which India is a part of.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, dismissed these concerns last week, saying, “There are a lot of things I worry about. The rupee becoming a reserve currency is not one of them.” He said this, citing the Rupee’s decline in recent weeks, noting that the currency was “at an all-time low versus the U.S. Dollar.”
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