India Proposes Retaliatory Duties Against US' Steel, Aluminium Tariffs At WTO
This is not the first time India has considered such action.
India has formally notified the World Trade Organization of its plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on US products, in response to Washington's continued duties on steel and aluminium imports. The proposed move, detailed in a WTO circular, could take effect at the end of 30 days from Monday.
According to the filing, India intends to raise tariffs on a range of US-origin products, aiming to recover an estimated $1.9 billion in duties — the quantified impact of American Section 232 tariffs on Indian steel and aluminium exports.
"The safeguard measures would affect US$ 7.6 billion imports into the United States of the relevant products originating in India, on which the duty collection would be US$ 1.91 billion. Accordingly, India's proposed suspension of concessions would result in an equivalent amount of duty collected from products originating in the United States," the communication at WTO read.
India has invoked provisions under the WTO's Safeguards Agreement, asserting that the US duties — originally introduced in 2018 citing national security concerns — violate global trade norms and have significantly hurt Indian exporters.
India said the US' measures have not been notified to the WTO, but are, in essence, safeguard measures. "India maintains that the measures taken by the United States are not consistent with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 and Agreement on Safeguards (AoS).
"India will inform both the Council for Trade in Goods and Committee on Safeguards on the next appropriate steps," it added.
This is not the first time India has considered such action. In 2018, Trump in his first term, had slapped a 25% duty on certain steel items and a 10% duty on aluminium products. India had retaliated with customs duties on 28 US products, including almonds and walnuts. India had also filed a complaint in the WTO.
However, this current round of back and forth is different, since the US and India are in active negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement. An Indian team of negotiators is expected to travel to Washington this month for further talks as well.
