Today’s Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy<doc-sep>The global trade war deepened Thursday with China reiterating it will hit back if the latest tariff threats from Donald Trump materialize, while India followed the European Union in slapping retaliatory levies on US goods. India raised tariffs on a slew of items in retaliation for the US imposing higher levies on some products shipped from the country, echoing steps taken by China, the European Union and other trading partners. The import duty on chickpeas and Bengal gram has been increased to 60%, while that on lentils has been hiked to 30%. The duty on boric acid and binders for foundry moulds has been hiked to 7.5%, while that on domestic reagents was raised to 10%. Duty on artemia, a kind of shrimp, has been hiked to 15%. The other products on which duties have been hiked include certain kind of nuts, iron and steel products, apples, pears, flat rolled products of stainless steel, other alloy steel, tube and pipe fittings, and screws, bolts and rivets. However, there was no duty hike on motorcycles imported from the US. Last week, India had submitted to the WTO a revised list of 30 items on which it proposed to raise customs duties by up to 50%. The move was in retaliation to the duty hike by the US on certain steel and aluminium products which had tariff implication of $241 million on India. The duty hike by India would have an equivalent tariff implications for the US. Sources said out of 30 items proposed, India has “excluded motorbikes above 800cc. Now additional customs duties have been imposed on 29 items.” On March 9, US President Donald Trump imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items, a move that has sparked fears of a global trade war. India has said the duty imposed by the US has affected steel exports by $198.6 million and aluminium shipments by $42.4 million. India has also dragged the US to the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism over the imposition of import duties on steel and aluminium. China also said it is “fully prepared” to respond to any new list of US tariffs, according to a commerce ministry spokesman, who said the nation will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures. Trump on Monday evening ordered up identification of $200 billion in Chinese imports for additional tariffs of 10 percent -- with another $200 billion after that if Beijing retaliates. The world’s most-powerful central bankers this week warned that escalating international trade tensions have started damaging confidence among companies, threatening the global economic expansion. Case in point: Daimler AG late Wednesday slashed its earnings outlook for the year, saying fewer Chinese consumers will buy Mercedes-Benz SUVs because of tariffs Beijing is slapping on autos imported from the US. “Changes in trade policy could cause us to have to question the outlook,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said during a panel discussion at a European Central Bank conference in Sintra, Portugal. “For the first time, we’re hearing about decisions to postpone investment, postpone hiring.” The European Union this week triggered the first phase of retaliation against the US over its metal-import tariffs imposed on national-security grounds, making good on more than three months of threats to hit American goods with tit-for-tat levies. Japan has reserved the right to respond too, although it hasn’t yet. Canada’s retaliatory measures begin on July 1, and Mexico and other nations have also announced they will respond. “The US abuses tariffs to trigger trade wars everywhere around the globe and that will severely damage the world trade order, hurt the interests of trading partners, and also hurt its domestic companies and people,” Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said at a regular briefing in Beijing on Thursday. The US “always use other nations as scapegoats for their own problems,” he said. The Trump administration this week ratcheted up its accusations that China’s trade and intellectual property practices are threatening US economic interests. The two nations are locked in a worsening cycle of retaliation on trade, with no public sign that negotiations are still happening. Both sides have promised to impose tariffs early next month on billions of dollars in goods. China had negotiated on agriculture and energy in early June and planned to negotiate on manufacturing and services, Gao said, adding that previous negotiations were in a “positive, constructive” manner. — With inputs from Bloomberg and PTI<doc-sep>Rates to come into effect from August 4. India has notified higher tariffs on several items imported from the United States, including agricultural products such as apples, almonds, chickpeas, lentils, and walnuts, and industrial inputs such as some grades of iron and steel products, in the latest salvo in the ongoing tariff tiff between the U.S. and several of its trading partners. The notification, however, says that these higher tariffs would come into effect from August 4, leaving room for further discussions between the U.S. and India before the new rates are implemented. Wednesday’s action follows the government’s notification to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last week, saying that it was imposing tariffs amounting to $240 million in retaliation to the U.S. action on steel and aluminium. The notification did not mention a tariff hike on 800 cc (or more) motorcycles, which would affect Harley Davidson imports, already a sore point. “The Commerce Minister has said that he will be having more talks with the U.S. on the trade issues, and so the later date [for the implementation of the tariffs] is to give time so that they can be amended following the talks,” a Finance Ministry official said on the condition of anonymity. “But the notification also shows that we are serious about the issue,” the official noted. India’s move comes close on the heels of escalating trade tensions, with the U.S. and China both imposing hefty tariffs on each other, and even the European Union joining the fray. Trumps signs order The issue began in March, when U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order imposing a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on aluminium imports, causing concern among its trading partners and members of the WTO. Recently, International Monetary Fund chief economist Maurice Obstfeld highlighted the detrimental effects of such a trade environment, saying that “the prospect of trade restrictions and counter-restrictions threatens to undermine confidence and derail growth prematurely.” “The U.S. has more sustaining power. It’s a large economy,” Dharmakirti Joshi, Chief Economist at Crisil told The Hindu. “But what it does mean is that the costs at both the ends would go up, for Indian consumers as well as for U.S. consumers. Imposing tariffs basically means either you look for other sources, or you import at higher prices. That’s the general direction this is going, and now it has intensified. Of late, it was rhetoric, but now these are actions.”<doc-sep>
New Delhi: India on Thursday said its retaliatory tariff on 29 US products worth $235 million will come into effect on 4 August, countering a US move to unilaterally raise import duties on Indian steel and aluminium. However, India left out Harley-Davidson from the final list, in a change from an earlier announcement that it would impose 50% additional tariff on the iconic American motorbikes. India could have imposed the retaliatory tariffs with immediate effect. But with negotiations coming up on a “trade package", New Delhi seems to have allowed some more time as assistant US trade representative Mark Linscott is scheduled to visit India next week. India is the latest major economy to hit back against US President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes on steel and aluminium. On Wednesday, the European Commission notified that it will start imposing 25% import duty from Friday on a range of US products including Harley-Davidson bikes. China in April implemented retaliatory tariffs of up to 25% on $3 billion in food imports from the US. Last week, India gave the World Trade Organization (WTO) a revised list of 30 items imported from the US, including almonds, apples and phosphoric acid, on which it intends to impose retaliatory tariffs. Earlier, on 18 May, India had given the WTO a list of 20 such items worth $166 million. India is the world’s largest buyer of US almonds and will collect $116 million by imposing a 20% additional duty on US exports. India had asked the US government to exempt it from the 25% steel tariff and 10% aluminium tariff imposed by Trump on grounds of national security. The US rejected India’s request. India has also dragged the US to the dispute settlement mechanism in the WTO over the matter. Trump has often raised the issue of higher tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles imposed by India and threatened to put reciprocal taxes on Indian bikes, which he has wrongly claimed to be selling “in thousands" in the US. Addressing reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada’s Quebec City last week, Trump specifically named India, accusing it of charging 100% tariff on some US goods. “We’re like the piggy bank that everybody is robbing," Trump said. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.