India will not “bow down” and instead focus on capturing new markets, trade minister Piyush Goyal said in his first public remarks since Washington imposed steep tariffs on Indian goods.
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The 50 per cent levies on many Indian imports into the United States took effect this week as punishment for New Delhi’s massive purchases of Russian oil, part of US efforts to pressure Moscow into ending its war in Ukraine.
Since his return to the White House this year, US President Donald Trump has wielded tariffs as a wide-ranging policy tool, with the levies upending global trade.
Speaking at a construction industry event in Delhi on Friday, Goyal said India was “always ready if anyone wants to have a free-trade agreement with us”.
But India “will neither bow down nor ever appear weak”, he added. “We will continue to move together and capture new markets.”
The latest tariffs salvo from Trump has strained US-India ties, with Delhi earlier criticising the levies as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.
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