Uni♎ted States President Donald Trump said onꦇ Monday that he has a "great" relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has told him that India is going to reduce substantially the tariffs on imports from the US.
He said that "tariff king&qu🎃ot; India on its own has reached out to the US to make a trade deal, without Washington calling New Delhi for negotiations.
He was speaking at ♏a White House news ▨conference on the revised North American Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico -- a landmark deal that fulfills one of his election promises.
Answering a question from a reporter, he said, "I have spoken Prime Minister Modi and he i🀅s going to reduce them (tariffs) very substantially."
He added, "My relationship with India is great, with Prime Minister Modi✱ is great. And they are going to start doing a lot."
Scoring a domestic political point, he asse🐠rted that as in tꦚhe case of the NAFTA and and other trade issues, none of the previous presidents or trade representatives had spoken to India about the high tariffs.
He quoted Modi as telling him, "Nobody every spoke to 🍰me" about the high tariffs.
"They (Ind💛ia) have called us to make a deal, we didn't even call them; 🏅they called us to make a deal, which is like shocking to people," he added.
Trump explained that he called India a "tariff king" because "it charges us tremend🥀ous tariffs."
He cited the example Harley Davidson motorcycles, which would re🌞sonate with bikers who are a section of his electoral base, saying that India charged 100 p🌊er cent duties on it.
He said, "That is so high that it is like barrier, in other words who is go🃏ing to buy it if it costs you so much."
"Now they have rꦯeduced that substantially, but it is still too high," he asserted.
--IANS
