NEW DELHI: Govt said Saturday that it is engaged with the US on a mechanism for concessional access for Indian textile goods, while maintaining that 45% of exports are outside the ambit of US tariffs and drawing comfort from “lower tariffs” on India.“As a result of these sustained efforts, India has been placed in the lower tier of additional tariffs under the final measures, providing a relative advantage to Indian exports in key sectors,” the commerce department said in a statement a day after the US imposed a new 10% tariff on India and 16 other countries for failure to check the import of goods using forced labour. Nearly 40 other countries face 12.5% additional tariffs.
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While India has in the past questioned the USTR probe and argued that domestic laws do not allow the use of forced labour, the statement made no reference to it and only spoke of govt being engaged with the US during the course of the probe under Section 301 of the US Trade Act.It sought to underline the point that 45% of goods were not covered by the tariffs. “A substantial share of India’s exports to the US, which currently attract zero additional duties, such as generic pharmaceuticals, smartphones and certain other specified products, continue to remain outside the scope of the additional 10% duty. Further, products already covered under Section 232 measures are not subject to the additional 10% duty... The remaining 55% of exports will attract the additional 10% duty, where India’s tariff incidence is comparatively lower than that for most other economies covered by the investigation.”While some analysts have pointed to India not receiving the textile and apparel tariff-rate quota exemption under the Section 301 tariff, govt said, “The textile-specific mechanism referenced in the final measures is yet to be established and operationalised. India continues to engage with the US on this matter as part of the ongoing negotiations for the India-US Bilateral Trade Agreement.” The exemption applies to specified quantities of textile and apparel exports from countries that use US-origin cotton and fibre.
