India on Thursday hit the US hard with steep import duties on agro commodities but spared high-end bikes such as Harley Davidson, whose cause was espoused by none less than President Donald Trump.
The US President in February had slammed India for a high import tariff on Harley-Davidson motorcycle, calling it "unfair", even as India duty on imported motorcycles from high-end brands to 50%.
The hike in tariff by India on 30 products was steepest for agro commodities, which would affect the politically sensitive farmer community in the US.
India is the largest importer of US almonds, on which import duty has been by 20%, while 120% tariff has been imposed on walnut up from 100%.
These apart, duties have been raised on apples, chickpeas, lentils artemia that would carry higher import taxes, most of which are bought from the US.
Deloitte India Partner M S Mani told PTI that on several products such as pulses the increase is very steep (30% to 70%), while for iron and steel products, the increase is at least 50% of the existing rate (from 15% to upwards of 22.5%).
"The increase in the customs duties on goods originating from the US was expected, but the magnitude of the increases would have been unexpected. These increases would make the domestic products cheaper compared to imports and lead to domestic manufacturing/demand pick-ups as a corollary," Mani said.
Meanwhile, the tariffs won't have any major impact on metal items, experts said.
"Imports of metal items from the US to India have remained miniscule as the price premium in their local market is much higher of around $200-250 a tonne on an average,"Anjani Agrawal, partner and global steel leader, EY India, told DNA Money.
Agrawal has just authored a report Indian Metals and Mining unveiled at the 7th India Minerals & Metals Forum in Delhi
In case of articles of steel under the code 73269099, India's imports were $ 39.27 million during calendar 2017 on which additional duty of 15% is proposed to be imposed, as disclosed in the document submitted earlier by the Indian officials to the World Trade Organisation earlier.
Since the US would be collecting close to $241 million duties from higher tariffs on certain steel and aluminium items, India's strategy is to withdraw concessions of similar amount from the 30 products imported by India from the US.
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India is the largest importer of US almonds, on which import duty has been by 20%, while 120% tariff has been imposed on walnut up from 100%.
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