India on Friday responded to a White House report that has identified the country as a key hub in a global network allegedly being used to evade US tariffs on Chinese goods, saying it has robust laws and procedures governing customs, exports and rules of origin.
"We would like to study the findings and the methodology that has been adopted in detail. We have, as you know, we have covered laws, procedures governing customs, rules of origin, exports of products, and any instances of violation that we have that may be there, are dealt with in accordance with the law," MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
The comments came after the White House flagged India among more than 40 countries in what it described as a "Shadow Transshipment Network" linked to the movement of Chinese goods to the US to potentially avoid higher tariffs.
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India has been classified as a "Tier-1 Diversified Scale Leader", alongside the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Japan and South Korea. The category includes major global trade hubs where the US sees significant transshipment risks because of the scale and diversity of legitimate trade flows.
According to the White House report, India, Mexico and Vietnam were the top three hubs for goods originating from China in 2025, with around $67 billion worth of goods estimated to have been transshipped through the three countries.
The US report specifically identified India's Pune-Gujarat-Chennai corridor as a potential route for pumps and compressors. It said Chinese companies could undertake limited processing in India before exporting goods to the US, potentially taking advantage of differences between tariffs on Chinese and Indian-origin products.
The report, however, acknowledged that the risk involving India is embedded within broad and legitimate trade flows between the two countries.
The White House has made tariff evasion a key focus of its trade-enforcement efforts, particularly amid significantly higher US tariff barriers on Chinese goods.
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The report alleges that China-linked supply chains can use third countries to reroute goods, with limited processing or documentation changes potentially obscuring their original country of manufacture.
The latest assessment puts greater scrutiny on India as the country seeks to strengthen its position as an alternative manufacturing and supply-chain destination for global companies.
The US is also looking to deploy artificial intelligence-driven tools through Customs to identify suspicious trade patterns and trace goods across complex supply chains, according to the report.
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