During slamming G7 over high tariffs, Trump also targets India
India featured once again in US President Donald Trump's tirade as he said during the recently concluded G7 summit in Quebec, Canada, that his country is like a piggy bank which everybody is "robbing".
Trump, who has attacked a number of countries, including the US's old allies, accusing them of putting huge tariffs on US exports, said the problem was not confined to just the G7 as some countries like India imposed a "hundred per cent" tariff in some cases. Trump, who left the G7 summit with a bad taste, threatened to shut trading with nations who had an "unfair" approach to the US.
Trump said his administration could not allow his country to get "robbed" regularly and as a "very profitable answer" to this problem, Washington will stop trading with countries.
This is not the first time that Trump has targeted India. In February this year, Trump lashed out at India over imposing duty on imports of the Harley-Davidson motorcycles and threatened to retaliate by hiking import tariffs on "thousands and thousands" of Indian motorcycles to his country.
Trump was not pleased with New Delhi's decision to reduce the tariff from 75 per cent to 50 per cent and sought a reciprocation saying the US imposed no tax on import of motorcycles.
Trump, however, did not allow the issue to hurt his relation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who he called a "beautiful man" despite the irritants in the trade. The US has backed India as a close friend in its plans in Afghanistan and Asia-Pacific which his administration as renamed Indo-Pacific although the Trump administration's stringent stand over trade and immigration has targeted India.