FPJ News Service mumbai

India’s government must prepare to take action against the US if President Donald Trump follows through with his threat to impose higher import tariffs, a senior industry executive said, Reuters reported on Thursday.

“We are all heading into a street fight where everybody will hit each other and everybody gets hurt,” Pankaj Chadha, chairman of the Engineering Exports Promotion Council, said in an interview. “We have not started it but we are not going to sit back and take the punches. India will have to take reciprocal measures to deal with it.”

Indian exporters would “definitely” be impacted if the US imposes a 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminum coming into the country from March 12, he said. Of about $18 billion-worth of engineering goods exported to the US in the 2023-24 fiscal year, $6.6 billion was steel and aluminum.

In his speech to the US Congress on Tuesday night, Trump reiterated his threat to impose levies on the metals, due to take effect next week, and to put in place reciprocal tariffs on all countries from April 2. “Tariff war is a zero sum game and no one will win, but consumers will definitely lose,” Chadha said.

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is currently in the US holding talks with Trump officials on trade. New Delhi has already taken several steps to appease Trump, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting with the US president in February and agreeing to negotiate a trade deal by the fall of this year.