The candidate of Republican President Donald Trump to be the United States ambassador to India said Thursday that Washington and New Delhi “were not so separate” in tariffs.
“We are not so separated in an agreement on these rates,” said Sergio Gor, a Trump nearby assistant who is currently director of the White House Presidential Office, at his Senate Confirmation Hearing.
“I think it will be resolved in the coming weeks,” Gor said.
The ties between the United States and India have been tensioned by Trump’s commercial war, with conversations about lower tariff rates that collapse after India, the fifth largest economy in the world, resisted opening its vast agricultural and dairy sectors. The bilateral trade between the two countries is worth more than $ 190 billion every year.
Trump first imposed additional 25 percent tariffs in imports of India, then said they would double up to 50 percent from August 27 as a punishment for the greater purchase of Russian oil in New Delhi, since Washington works to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump said on Tuesday that his administration continues negotiations to address commercial barriers with India and that he would speak with Modi, in a sign of a restart after weeks of diplomatic friction.
When asked if he undertook to press to ensure that a meeting of the Quad Summit, which groups India with Australia, Japan and the United States, will take place as scheduled at the end of this year, Gor said: “Without committing to exact quotes … the president is completely committed to continuing with the quad and strengthening it.”
India is expected to organize a quad summit in November, with a more explicit approach to security with respect to China than before, but a person familiar with the matter to his matter. Reuters This month that Trump has not yet scheduled a trip there.
