India may offer lower duties on pecan nuts to cool Trump’s tariff barbs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump this week, which are likely to include intense parleys on tariffs, may include some offers for further reductions in import duties on items of U.S. interest such as the uniquely American pecan nuts grown in its southwestern States.

Officials hope such concession offers, along with a detailed fact sheet on the country’s import duties being quite low or even zero on America’s major industrial goods exports to India, could help soften Mr. Trump’s stance about it being a tariff abuser.

“India is now very friendly in terms of industrial goods,” a top government official said. “On agriculture, we may have sensitivities but we have already reduced duties on items of U.S. interest like almonds. Now, there are some other items like pecan nuts that we can look at cutting duties on in due course,” he said, requesting anonymity.

India levied a 100% import duty on pecan nuts till early 2023, when it was slashed to 30%. However, there is scope for further cuts on such U.S. farm products not produced locally, the official indicated.

The government is hopeful that after meeting Prime Minister Modi, Mr. Trump may water down or suspend some decisions seen as hurting India’s interests, as he had in the case of tariffs against Mexico and Canada.

Pointing to the fact that Mr. Modi will be among the first to meet President Trump bilaterally, after leaders of Israel and Japan, while leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the United Kingdom are also expected to visit Washington soon, an External Affairs Ministry official stressed the special relationship the two leaders share. New Delhi is also keen to lobby with Mr. Trump to restore the special status for Indian exporters under its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) that he had revoked in 2019.

“With Trump, there is always the ‘art of the deal’,” said Mukesh Aghi, US-India Strategic Partnership Forum president and CEO. “Trump is using tariff as a way of negotiating – and he was able to get his way with Canada and Mexico. There is an obvious camaraderie between him and PM Modi, which can and should be translated into a win-win proposition for both,” he added, suggesting that negotiating a Free Trade Agreement and ensuring India purchases American defence equipment and energy are amongst the U.S. President’s priorities.

“If you see our tariff structure on 30 major items imported from the U.S, India’s import duties are very low,” Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) chairperson Sanjay Kumar Agrawal had told The Hindu last week.

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