Trade War Escalates

The global trade wars have widened with India joining the EU and China in imposing retaliatory higher tariffs on imports from the US. India raised duties on 29 products from the US, including American apples, almonds, walnuts and stainless steel products after the US hiked import duties on steel (25 per cent) and aluminium (10 per cent).

India is the largest importer of almonds from the US. As far as India is concerned, during the first nine months of FY2018, iron and steel exports to the US were $ 309 million while articles of iron and steel exports amounted to $1.35 billion. However, India's biggest export item is petroleum products, followed by ITeS.

The US accounted for 57 per cent of India's total ITeS exports of $111 billion in FY2017. Those big ticket items are still not hit, but things could get ugly if it spreads.

Anup Jayaram