They shouldn’t be dumping: Trump threatens India with new tariffs to protect US rice farmers
Trump reiterated the concerns that rice farmers in the US has raised. They have claimed that imports from India, Vietnam and Thailand have been detrimental for rice prices in the domestic market with production costs rising and limited overseas opportunities.
New Delhi: US President Donald Trump has already imposed tariffs on several countries, including 50% tariffs on Indian goods. Now, he has threatened to introduce new tariffs on agricultural imports, especially on rice imports from India and fertiliser from Canada.
The warning from Trump
Notably, the US has held trade talks with both nations but there has not found much success on that front. Trump warned about agricultural tariffs during a meeting at the White House while unveiling a multi-billion-dollar farm relief package for American farmers.
'They should not be dumping'
Trump reiterated the concerns that rice farmers in the US has raised. They have claimed that imports from India, Vietnam and Thailand have been detrimental for rice prices in the domestic market with production costs rising and limited overseas opportunities. Trump said that he will address the problem of 'dumping of foreign rice' onto the US market.
He said, "They shouldn’t be dumping. I heard that from others. You can’t do that." While talking about the dominance of Indian firms in the US retail rice market, Trump said, "All right, and we'll take care of it. That's great. It's so easy. Tariffs, again, solves the problem in two minutes."
Trump spoke of implementing tariffs to safeguard American producers, claiming that his government would direct "$12 billion in economic assistance to American farmers". He said the money will come from the tariff revenues the US is getting from trading partners.
Blaming countries of taking unprecedented advantage of the US, he said, "We're really taking in trillions of dollars, if you think about it. He added that tariffs would help in reviving the US agriculture, as "Farmers are an indispensable national asset, part of the backbone of America."
Tariffs on Canada as well
To boost local production of fertilisers and reduce their import from Canada, Trump said, "A lot of it does come in from Canada, and so we'll end up putting very severe tariffs on that, if we have to, because that's the way you want to bolster here. And we can do it here. We can all do that here."