President Donald Trump Saturday said that India wants to have a trade deal with the US because it does not want him to impose tariffs on their products.
Trump remarks, for the second time in recent weeks, comes days after Assistant US Trade Representative Mark Linscott returned from India where he had detailed discussion with senior Indian officials on bilateral trade and a possible trade deal between the two countries.
Trump often accuses India of imposing 100 percent tariffs on American products.
"We have a country, take India. Good relationship. They want to make a deal now because they don't want me to do what I'm going to do, with I have to. So, they (Indians) call us. They didn't want to make a deal with anybody else," he said.
Trump referred to India in the context of his repeated allegation that other countries have been taking advantage of America in the past. Trump in September said India wanted a trade deal with the US despite the US administration's tough stance on the issue.
"Take India. You talk about free trade. So, let's say they (Indians) charge us 60 per cent tariff on a product. And for the same product when they send it in (America), we charge them nothing. So now I want to charge them 25 per cent or 20 or 10 or something," Trump said.
"What do you think? That's not free trade. We don't like it. I said, where are these people coming from? So, think of it. Where are they coming from? You have no idea how difficult it is. Where are they coming?" Trump said referring to the conversations he is having with India.
Trump told the crowd that he is using India just as an example.
The president said he can give example of other countries which are "brutal" to what they do with the United States.
"I could give you (examples of) others that are brutal, just brutal what they do to us, how they take advantage of the stupidity. We never even had people negotiate, they just do whatever they want," Trump said as he went back to the India example.
"Remember this? A lot of the people that are fighting me in what I'm doing have ownership of companies in these other countries. Remember that please. Remember that, or they're represented by lobbies," Trump said, as he lashed out at those who are opposing his America First trade policies.
Trump said nobody wants to talk about the jobs created and nobody wants to talk about all the money that's flowing in to the coffers of the United States of America, he said.
"The people that are against it are usually having companies...you know, you go to these other countries, they have companies there too," he alleged.
First Published: IST