Hours after announcing that India will pay 25 per cent tariffs along with a penalty, United States President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that talks with India are still going on. Donald Trump reiterated that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is his “friend”, India is a country that has “one of the highest tariffs” in the world.(X/Narendra Modi)

While addressing a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, Trump was asked what is the additional penalty he has levied on India for “supporting” Russia and whether other countries are also facing the same threat. To this, Trump said that the US is still negotiating with India before expressing his displeasure over India being a member of the BRICS.

Trump said that BRICS, which is a group of eleven emerging economies around the world, is an “attack” on the dollar, which is something he said he is not going to let anybody too.

Also read: Donald Trump announces 25% tariff, plus a penalty on India from Aug 1

“Well, we are negotiating right now and it’s also BRICS. BRICS, which is basically a group of countries that are anti the United States and India is a member of that if you can believe it…It is an attack on the dollar and we are not going to let anybody attack the dollar. So it’s partially BRICS and it’s partially trade,” said Trump.

Apart from India, BRICS includes Brasil, Russia, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Iran.

Trump reiterated that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is his “friend”, India is a country that has “one of the highest tariffs” in the world and added that the US had a “tremendous” trade deficit with India.

Also read: Centre responds to Donald Trump’s 25% tariff announcement: ‘Our national interest’

“We had a tremendous deficit. As you know Prime Minister Modi is a friend of mine, but they don’t do very much business in terms of business with us. They sell a lot to us, but we don’t buy from them. You know why? Because the tariff is so high. They have one of the highest tariffs in the world. Now, they are willing to cut it very substantially. But we will see what happens. We are talking to India now. We will see what happens. It doesn’t matter too much whether we have a deal or we charge them a certain tariff. But you will know at the end of this week,” he said.

Is Trump open to tariff negotiations with India?

The US President was also asked whether he is open to negotiating with India on the tariffs, to which he said that the talks are still going on.

“We are talking to them now. We will see what happens. India was the highest or just about the highest-tariff nation in the world…We will see. We are negotiating with India right now,” he said.

India on US’ 25% tariffs

After Trump’s big tariff announcement, the Indian government said that they have taken a note of and are studying its “implications”.

“India and the US have been engaged in negotiations on concluding a fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement over the last few months. We remain committed to that objective,” the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement.