Top Trade Lawmakers Urge Trump to Address Trade Barriers With Indian Prime Minister
Ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s June 26 trip to the White House, the top Republican and Democrat on both congressional trade committees in a letter urged President Donald Trump to prioritize the elimination of Indian trade barriers, including “burdensome import and customs procedures.” High tariffs, inadequate intellectual property rights protection, inconsistent and opaque licensing and regulatory practices are among the issues cited by the lawmakers in the June 23 letter (here). India imposes “especially” high tariffs on agricultural products, which has led to smuggling of U.S. goods like almonds through third countries to avoid high customs duties, the lawmakers said. Furthermore, India recently raised tariffs on medical devices and information technology products, in contravention of its commitments under the World Trade Organization Information Technology Agreement, they said. India imposes forced localization measures on solar and IT products as well as “duplicative” in-country security testing requirements for telecommunications equipment, the letter says.
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Slow and non-transparent approval procedures for biotechnology products and apparently “non-science based” sanitary/phytosanitary standards also harm bilateral trade, the letter says. “In recent years, the United States and India have sought to strengthen our economic engagement through the bilateral Strategic and Commercial Dialogue (S&CD) and the Trade Policy Forum (TPF),” the lawmakers wrote. “Yet these high-level discussions have not resulted in the elimination of major trade and investment barriers or even deterred India from imposing new barriers. Many sectors of the Indian economy remain highly and unjustifiably protected, and India continues to be a difficult place for American companies to do business.”