Trump on reciprocal tariff with India: Nobody can argue with me

President Trump emphasises reciprocal tariffs with India, stating, “Whatever you charge, I’m charging,” during an interview.
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he made it clear to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India will not be spared from Washington’s reciprocal tariffs, emphasising that “nobody can argue with me” on tariff structure.

Mr. Trump made these remarks during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity recently. Fox News aired a joint television interview with President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday night (February 19, 2025).

On February 13, hours before Prime Minister Modi’s bilateral meeting with Mr. Trump in the White House, the U.S. President announced reciprocal tariffs.

Also read: PM Modi U.S. visit highlights

Under the plan, the Trump administration “will work strenuously to counter non-reciprocal trading arrangements with trading partners by determining the equivalent of a reciprocal tariff with respect to each foreign trading partner.”

During the interview with Mr. Hannity, Mr. Trump reiterated his stance on existing tariff structures between the U.S. and its partners, including India.

“I told Prime Minister Modi yesterday—he was here—I said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do: reciprocal. Whatever you charge, I’m charging,’” President Trump said.

“He (Modi) goes, ‘No, no, I don’t like that.’ ‘No, no, whatever you charge, I’m going to charge.’ I’m doing that with every country,” Mr. Trump said.

India has very strong tariffs on certain imports from the U.S., like in the automobile sector and India charges 100%.

Mr. Musk said, “It’s 100% — auto imports are 100%.”

“Yeah, that’s peanuts. So, much higher. And—and others too. I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do: reciprocal. Whatever you charge, I’m charging,” Mr. Trump said.

Under the reciprocal tariff system, the U.S. would impose the same level of tariffs on Indian imports as India does on American goods.

“Nobody can argue with me,” President Trump insisted.

“If I said 25%, they’d say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible.’ I don’t say that anymore… because I say, ‘Whatever they charge, we’ll charge.’ And you know what? They stop,” Mr. Trump said.

During PM Modi’s visit to the U.S., while responding to a question on reciprocal tariffs on India, Mr. Trump said, “India has been, to us, just about the highest tariffed nation anywhere in the world. They’ve been very strong on tariffs, and I don’t blame them, necessarily, but it’s a different way of doing business. It’s very hard to sell to India because they have trade barriers and very strong tariffs.”

“We are right now a reciprocal nation. We are going to—if it’s India or if it’s somebody else with low tariffs, we’re going to have the same. We’re going to have whatever India charges; we’re charging them. Whatever another country charges, we’re charging them. So, it’s called reciprocal, which I think is a very fair way. We didn’t have that,” he said.

During his first term as the U.S. president, Mr. Trump described India as a “tariff king” and, in May 2019, terminated India’s preferential market access—Generalized System of Preferences (GSP)—to the U.S., alleging India has not given the United States “equitable and reasonable access to its markets.”

Also, during the interview, Mr. Musk claimed that two NASA astronauts, including Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams, currently stuck in space, had been left there by the Biden administration “for political purposes.”

SpaceX, also founded and owned by Mr. Musk, has been contracted to bring Ms. Williams and Butch Wilmore home. Mr. Musk said the rescue attempts would be being made in less than a month.

“They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” he said.

“Okay, it’s not good…Well, we don’t want to be complacent, but we have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success,” he added.

Mr. Trump chimed in “They didn’t have the go-ahead with Biden. He was going to leave them in space.”

However, astronauts Williams and Wilmore, in an interview to CNNon Thursday (February 13, 2025), have denied allegations that the duo were stranded or abandoned in the international space station (ISS). They also said that they were aware that it was a test flight and were prepared for contingencies.