U.S. trade deficit with 9 countries higher than with India, yet 7 face lower tariffs

The U.S. has levied the third-highest tariff on India among the top 10 countries with which it has the highest trade deficits, an analysis has revealed. In other words, while the U.S. has a higher trade deficit with nine other countries than with India, it has levied higher tariffs on just two — China and Canada.

This comes against the backdrop of the Ministry of External Affairs saying that Mr. Trump’s targeting of India is “unjustified and unreasonable”.

An analysis by Rubix Data Sciences, a risk management and monitoring company, shows that the U.S. had a $49.5 billion trade deficit with India in 2024, the 10th highest among all its trading partners. However, the U.S. has levied a tariff of 25% “plus penalties” on imports from India, the third-highest among these countries.

For example, the U.S. had a trade deficit of $175.9 billion with Mexico in 2024 — 3.5 times that with India — but has levied the same 25% tariff on that country.

Similarly, the U.S. had higher trade deficits with Vietnam ($129.4 billion), Germany ($87.9 billion), Ireland ($87.2 billion), Taiwan ($76.4 billion), Japan ($72.3 billion), and South Korea ($69.9 billion) than with India, but levies lower tariffs on those countries than it does on India.

The only two countries with which the U.S. has higher deficits than with India and also levies a higher import tariff are China (30%) and Canada (35%).

On India’s purchase of oil from Russia, Mr. Trump on Monday said that “they (India) don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian war machine”.

However, data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which regularly tracks Russia’s energy exports, show that the EU was the largest buyer of Russian liquified natural gas (LNG), accounting for 51% of Russia’s exports of these products between December 2022 and June 2025, followed by China (21%) and Japan (18%). Even when it comes to pipeline gas, the EU was the largest buyer of Russian gas, purchasing 37% of Russia’s exports, followed by China (30%) and Turkiye (27%).

China bought 47% of Russia’s crude exports during this period, followed by India (38%), the EU (6%), and Turkiye (6%).