WASHINGTON, June 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) – U.S. President, Donald Trump, announced that he will end the preferential trade treatment for India on June 5, which exempts billions of dollars of its products from U.S. tariffs due to its developing country status.
“I have determined that India has not assured the United States that India will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets. Accordingly, it is appropriate to terminate India’s designation as a beneficiary developing country effective June 5, 2019,” Trump said in a White House statement, citing the Trade Act of 1974.
In early March, the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office, announced that the United States intends to move India and Turkey out of a programme under which a group of developing countries receive preferential trade treatment.
The programme, called the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), was created to support developing countries alleviate poverty through trade. India was designated as a beneficiary developing country under the programme in a presidential executive order in Nov, 1975.
As of 2017, some 5.6 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of Indian imports enjoys duty-free status, in accordance with the GSP, making the country the biggest beneficiary of the programme, data from the USTR’s office showed.
In the statement, the U.S. president also said, he would remove India from the list of developing country World Trade Organisation members exempt from tariffs on certain crystalline silicon photo-voltaic (CSPV) products — including modules, laminates, panels, and building-integrated materials — and large residential washers.
Trump, who complained about U.S. trade deficit with India, issued a presidential proclamation last year, removing 50 items from a list of Indian products subject to the GSP, effective Nov 1, 2018. Washington has a 21-billion-dollar trade deficit with New Delhi in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.– NNN-AGENCIES
