Trump Issues 50% Tariff Retaliation Against India, Lula to Coordinate BRICS Joint Answer
The Trump Administration continued to accelerate its tariff retaliation against countries not aligned with its international policies. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued the “Addressing Threats to the United States By The Government of the Russian Federation” executive order, hiking the established tariff regime from 25% to 50% on India, given its “direct or indirect importation of Russian Federation oil.”
The White House explained that these actions were taken as the president considered that “India’s importation of Russian Federation oil undermines U.S. efforts to counter Russia’s harmful activities,” and that this behavior “further enables the Russian Federation’s economy to fund its aggression.” The new tariff will be effective 21 days after August 7 if Trump does not change his mind on the issue, as has happened many times before.
The Indian government rejected these actions, labeling them as “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable.” India’s Foreign Ministry stated that it was “extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest,” vowing to take actions to protect its economy and markets.
Brazil, whose exports to the U.S. are also paying the same tariff percentage, is mobilizing to coordinate a joint response by the BRICS bloc, of which India is also a member. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told Reuters that he would call India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping to tackle the issue.
“I’m going to try to discuss with them about how each one is doing in this situation, what the implications are for each country, so we can make a decision. It’s important to remember that the BRICS have ten countries at the G20,” he stressed.
