The Battle of Tariffs in the G7 Summit Affects India

American President Donald Trump has suggested to the G7 leaders that the world should eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers, and industrial subsides to promote free trade.

- Kuntala Sarkar

Speaking at the recently held G7 Summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, Trump stated, “No tariffs, no barriers, that’s the way it should be.” He added, “Ultimately that’s what you want, you want tariff free, no barriers, and you want no subsides because you have some countries subsidising industries and that’s not fair. So, you go tariff free, you go barrier free, you go subsidy free.”

Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic advisor and an advocate of free trade, has said that the suggestion of no tariffs from Trump led to productive discussions with other world leaders. Kudlow said at the press conference, “As the President said, reduce these barriers, in fact go to zero, zero tariffs, zero nontariff barriers, zero subsidies, and along the way we’re going to have to clean up the international trading system.”

Trump is imposing new tariffs

Trump’s words came just a few weeks after he had decided to impose larger tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from the European Union, Canada, and Mexico which happened a few months after he had hit the rest of the world with the same tariffs. The top trading partners of the US are upset over recent imposition of a 25% tariff on import of steel and a 15% import tariff on aluminium. Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland responded by saying that Trump’s argument for imposing tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium was “absurd and frankly insulting to Canadians”. Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda justifies his imposition of tariffs to protect the US industry and workers from unfair international competition.