Donald Trump announces 26% tariff on imports from India: ‘A great friend but…

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced sweeping new reciprocal tariffs as part of his ‘Liberation Day’ announcement event in the Rose Garden of the White House.According to the announcement, the United States will apply a 26 per cent tariff on imports from India. Talking about India, Donald Trump called Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘a great friend’ but added that the country was ‘not treating us right’.”Their Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) just left (US recently). He is a great friend of mine, but I said to him that ‘you’re a friend of mine, but you’ve not been treating us right’. India charges us 52 per cent, so we will charge them half of that – 26 per cent,” he said.Tariffs on other countriesApart from India, Donald Trump announced ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on other countries, like China, Japan, the European Union, and Taiwan. He also slapped tariffs on imports from one of America’s closest allies, Israel.The US will levy a 34 per cent tariff on China, a 20 per cent tariff on the EU, and a 24 per cent tariff on Japan. Importers of Israeli products will have to pay a 17 per cent tariff.“I think you’re going to remember today,” Reuters quoted Trump as saying. He predicted that the public might look back on his economic policies and conclude he was right. That’s despite many experts predicting his policies will mean major upheaval for the US economy.After his speech in the White House’s Rose Garden, Trump sat down at a small desk erected for the occasion and signed two executive orders that helped cement the new tariff policies.Trump says his ‘reciprocal’ tariff rates are ‘kind’ and could have been much steeper