The move by United States President Donald Trump to place import curbs on metal producers is likely to hit Canada and China, but it may not have an immediate impact on India.
According to Steel Secretary Aruna Sharma, India does not expect any immediate impact from Trump's decision to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
"We have only 2 percent of our exports to the US, so no immediate dent, but the validity of Section 232 is stretched to be used as tariff barrier," Reuters quotes Aruna Sharma as saying on Friday.
Section 232(b) of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gives the United States the ability to investigate whether certain imports or high levels of certain imports pose a threat to national security, the Reuters report added.
Donald Trump on Thursday (March 1) said the US would impose a 25 percent import tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum to protect US producers. The proposal has raised fears of an international trade war involving China and Europe.
When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 2 March 2018
An order regarding the trade tariff would be signed next week, Trump said after a meeting with several top US steel and aluminum executives.
Trump on Thursday tweeted that the steel and aluminum industries (and many others) in the US were decimated by decades of bad policy and unfair trade with countries from around the world.
Our Steel and Aluminum industries (and many others) have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world. We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer. We want free, fair and SMART TRADE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 1 March 2018
Trump's tariff proposal led to jitters in stock markets across the globe. Dow dropped more than 400 points on the same day. US stocks fell for the third straight day on Friday. Warren Buffett has lost more than $3 billion (in market cap) in just one week.
