The US on Friday declared its decision to end special tariffs to $5.6 billion of Indian exports from June 5 after determining that it has not guaranteed the US that it will give “equitable and reasonable access to its markets.”
“I have determined that India has not assured the US that it will provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets. Accordingly, it is appropriate to terminate India’s designation as a beneficiary developing country effective June 5, 2019,” US President Donal Trump said in a proclamation on Friday.
The US has declared the withdrawal of special duty benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) on March 5 And were to come into force from the first week of May. Be that as it may, Washington chose to defer the execution of its decision until May 23, when India gets a new government.
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross met former commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu met a month ago wherein the two talked about issues identified with ecommerce, data protection and localisation and intellectual property rights.
According to an investigation by the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, India’s global merchandise exports for 2018 were $324.7 billion, of which $51.4 billion were to the US. In any case, just $6.35 billion of exports from India to the US profited by the GSP scheme. Such exports were covered under 1921 US tariff lines.
No exemption to PV cells, washers
The US likewise expelled the exemption for India from application of the defend measures on crystalline silicon photovoltaic (CSPV) products and large residential washers effective June 5.
“I have determined to remove it from the list of developing country WTO Members exempt from application of the safeguard measures on CSPV products and large residential washers,” Trump said in the proclamation.
In January a year ago, the US had implemented a safeguard measure on imports of certain CSPV cells and huge washers as the individual share of total imports of the product surpassed 3% and imports of all such countries with less than 3% import share collectively accounted for more than 9% of total imports of the product.
