US close to making deal with India, says Trump amid new tariffs announced against 14 nations

WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump said on Monday night (local time) that the US is close to reaching a trade deal with India, even as he announced tariffs on 14 nations.

While speaking to reporters as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday (local time), Trump stated that the US had made a deal with the UK and China. He stated that he had sent a letter to the nations that he believed would not make a deal with the US.

When asked about tariffs, Trump responded, “We’ve spoken to everybody. …it’s all done. I told you we’ll make some deals, but for the most part, we’re going to send a letter. We’re going to say, welcome to the United States if you’d like to participate in the greatest, most successful country ever. I mean we are doing better than ever… We’ve never had numbers like this. We’ve never had investment like this. We have more than 90… have much more than 90. But most of those are going to be sent to letter. This is exactly what I said. Now we’ve made a deal with United Kingdom. We’ve made a deal with China. We’re close to making a deal with India. Others we met with and we don’t think we’re going to be able to make a deal. So we just send them a letter.

“If you want to play ball, …this is what you have to pay… As far as I’m concerned, we’re done. We’re sending out letters to various countries telling them how much tariffs they have to pay. Some will maybe adjust a little bit, depending if they have a, cause. We’re not going to be unfair about it and actually, it’s a small fraction compared to what we should be getting. We should be, we could be asking for much more. But for the sake of relationships that we’ve had with a lot of really good countries, we’re doing the way I do it. We could be getting a lot more. We could ask for a lot more than what we’re asking for,” he added.

His remarks came after he announced new tariffs for 14 nations, including Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, South Korea, and Japan, that will take effect on August 1.

Erlier, Trump shared letters sent by his administration to 14 countries on his social media platform Truth Social, informing them of the reciprocal tariffs that will take effect from August 1.

Trump first shared the letters sent to Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung. Around two hours later, he announced similar letters were sent to Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Myanmar and Laos.

Later, he shared tariff letters sent to leaders of other countries, including Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tunisia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Cambodia.

According to the letters, Thailand and Cambodia each will face a tariff of 36 per cent while and Bangladesh and Serbia will each be hit with a tariff of 35 per cent. In the letters, Trump mentioned that Malaysia and Kazakhstan will each face 25 per cent tariffs.

Myanmar and Laos will face a 40 per cent tariff on their goods exported to the US. Indonesia will face a tariff rate of 32 per cent. Imports from South Africa and Bosnia and Herzegovina will be subject to 30 per cent tariffs on August 1. According to the letters, Tunisia will face a tariff of 25 per cent.

In the letters written to the South Korean President and the Japanese Prime Minister, Trump stated that Japan and South Korea will face a 25 per cent tariff from August 1.

In the letters, Trump threatened to increase the tariff rate by the same amount if the countries decided to raise their tariffs on importing American products. However, the US President indicated his willingness to reduce these tariffs if these countries revised their trade policies.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order delaying his July 9 tariff deadline to August 1.

The 90-day deadline Trump set for nations to make trade deals with the US or face higher tariffs is scheduled to end on July 9, CNN reported. On April 2, Trump unveiled new “reciprocal” tariff rates for key US trading partners, with some tariffs as high as 50 per cent.

After the tariffs took effect on April 9, they led to a sell-off on Wall Street, and the bond market rebelled, prompting Trump to announce a three-month pause to give nations more time to negotiate with the US, as per the CNN report. (ANI)