(Image source from: Houston Chronicle)
The United States President Donald Trump on Saturday said that India wants to have a trade deal with the U.S. because it does not want him to carry out tariffs on their products.
Remarks by Trump came days after Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Mark Linscott returned from India where he had detailed discussion with senior Indian officials on two-sided trade and a likely trade deal amid the two countries.
Trump frequently accuses India of imposing 100 percent tariffs on American products.
"We have a country, take India. Good relationship. They want to make a deal now because they don't want me to do what I'm going to do, with I have to. So, they (Indians) call us. They didn't want to make a deal with anybody else," he said.
Trump referred to India in the context of his recurrent claim that other countries have been taking advantage of America in the past.
In September, Trump said India wanted a trade deal with the U.S. despite the U.S. administration's tough stance on the issue.
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"Take India. You talk about free trade. So, let's say they (Indians) charge us 60 percent tariff on a product. And for the same product when they send it in (America), we charge them nothing. So now I want to charge them 25 percent or 20 or 10 or something," Trump said.
"What do you think? That's not free trade. We don't like it. I said, where are these people coming from? So, think of it. Where are they coming from? You have no idea how difficult it is. Where are they coming?" Trump said referring to the conversations he is having with India.
Trump told the crowd that he is using India just as an instance.
The president said he can give an example of additional countries which are "brutal" to what they do with the U.S.
"I could give you (examples of) others that are brutal, just brutal what they do to us, how they take advantage of the stupidity. We never even had people negotiate, they just do whatever they want," Trump said as he went back to the India example.
"Remember this? A lot of the people that are fighting me in what I'm doing have ownership of companies in these other countries. Remember that, please. Remember that, or they're represented by lobbies," Trump said, as he lashed out at those who are opposing his America First trade policies.
Trump said nobody wants to talk about the jobs created and nobody wants to talk about all the money that's flowing into the coffers of the United States of America, he said.
"The people that are against it are usually having companies...you know, you go to these other countries, they have companies there too," he alleged.
By Sowmya Sangam
