Trump Doubles India Tariffs To 50%

Topline

President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Indian imports from 25% to 50% Wednesday in what he said was retaliation against India for buying Russian oil.

US President Donald Trump meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington DC, United States on February 13, 2025. (Photo by Indian Press Information Bureau / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Anadolu via Getty Images

Key Facts

The additional tariff will go into effect within 21 days, on top of the 25% tariff that will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, along with new tariffs on more than 60 countries, when the deadline Trump set for U.S. trading partners to negotiate new tariffs expires.

Trump suggested in recent days he would raise tariffs against India ahead of the Thursday deadline, telling CNBC on Tuesday, “India has not been a good trading partner,” while threatening he would “raise [the new tariffs] very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil, they’re fueling the war machine.”

The move comes as Trump has sought to pressure Russia to reach a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine as he seeks to broker an end to the war between the two countries.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs called the reciprocal tariffs “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” in a statement, adding it’s “extremely unfortunate that the U.S. should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest,” an apparent reference to other countries, such as China, that also purchase Russian oil.

Big Number

$52.7 billion. That’s the value of Russian oil India imported last year, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution’s Robin Brooks and Ben Harris published by the Harvard Kennedy School last month. India is the second largest importer of Russian oil, behind China.

What To Watch For

Trump suggested in Wednesday’s executive order that other countries that buy Russian oil could face similar penalties. The order directed administration officials to “determine whether any other country is directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil” and if they should face penalties for the deals.

Tangent

Trump’s doubling of the tariffs against India comes as Apple—which manufactures a significant portion of iPhones in India—is expected to announce a new $100 billion investment in the U.S. Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tariff against Apple unless it moves to more domestic production, though the company is largely exempt for now from the new tariffs against India under the exemption Trump announced in April for all smartphones, computers and other electronics.

Key Background

Most of the new tariffs set to take effect Thursday on 67 U.S. trading partners were announced by Trump in April on “Liberation Day,” when Trump imposed a slate of what the White House called “reciprocal” tariffs. Trump initially delayed the tariffs until July 9 then again until Aug. 1 and for a third time until Aug. 7 to give U.S. trading partners time to negotiate new rates with the U.S., though only a handful of countries reached new deals.