Former Indian Ambassador debunks 'India's tariff king' myth

Washington, Sep 4
Former Indian Ambassador to France and Director General of Jadeja Motwani Institute for American Studies at OP Jindal Global University, Mohan Kumar, has countered the Trump administration's assertion that India is the "Maharaja of tariffs".



In an article in Newsweek magazine on Sunday, titled "Is India a 'Tariff King'? Not Really," Kumar, termed the perception of India's high tariff rates as "widespread but fallacious".

Kumar argued that "tariff war initiated by the US is in violation of its commitments under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements", while acknowledging that the WTO has been "moribund for a while".

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday again pressed his allegation that India's tariffs on US exports are "about the highest in the world".

"India was charging us tremendous tariffs, about the highest in the world. They were about the highest in the world, number one. And we therefore weren't doing much business with India. But they were doing business with us because we weren't charging them foolishly," he added.

The former foreign service officer also attempted to debunk a common misconception about calculating tariffs.

He believed that trade-weighted tariffs is a more useful method as against simple average tariffs because "for most of the goods that come into the Indian market, it is the trade-weighted applied tariff that matters".

He highlighted that India's trade-weighted tariff is a "respectable 4.6 per cent", as compared to simple average tariffs of close to 16 per cent.

Kumar acknowledged that India maintains high tariffs in agriculture to protect its farmers, and the US demands to open India's farming sector would be "akin to asking it to commit suicide, which no elected government in India would agree to".

He asserted that these demands are "egregious" since Western farmers are beneficiaries of direct and indirect subsidies.

Kumar also noted that despite the narrative, US exporters face "equal or lower tariffs in India compared to many Asian peers".

He underscored electronics and technology sectors, where most imports have zero per cent tariffs, as compared to Vietnam's rate of 8.5 per cent and China's 5.4 to 20 per cent.