On Friday, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor took a jab at US President Donald Trump and criticised the high tariffs that Washington has imposed, stating that this would be detrimental to the Indian economy. In an appearance at a conference in Singapore, Tharoor characterised the behaviour of Trump as mercurial and said that he had failed to observe accepted diplomatic protocols.
The US has recently put a 50 per cent tariff on Indian exports, and on further buying of Russian oil by New Delhi, it added another 25 per cent penalty. Tharoor reasoned that such actions have rendered plenty of Indian products uncompetitive in America. Already jobs are being lost. Surat has lost 1.35 lakh gems and jewellery business workers alone. The manufacturing and seafood industries were also incurring mass losses, he said.
Possibly emphasising the seriousness of the crisis, Tharoor pointed out that the tariffs are not mere trade barriers only. The 25 per cent more is not a tariff, it is sanctions. It is completely unjust since China is importing more oil and gas from Russia but without similar punishment, he commented by asking Washington to have a consistent treatment of all countries.
Tharoor also cautioned that India could not just hose down the damage and move on, and that it had to move quickly in order to protect its economy. He advocated diversification of the export markets because, according to him, excessive reliance on the US would expose India to a greater risk in a period of geopolitical friction.
His statements are timed poorly when the Indian and US authorities have indicated the move to conclude a trade deal. Recently, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal proposed that the initial tranche of the deal would be announced in September.
Tharoor, in a sharp criticism, said that Trump was a very strange president by any measure and flouts the rules of diplomacy and that his policies are now directly influencing the lives of people in India.
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