Cut on motorcycle tariffs by India fair deal: Trump
Washington, Jan 25 : US President Donald Trump has said the decision by India last year to cut the tariffs on motorcycles by half was a fair deal, but rued the high duties on American whisky.
At a White House event on the Reciprocal Trade Act on Thursday, Trump flashed out a green colour board that had examples of non-reciprocal tariffs from various countries.
"Look at motorcycles as an example. (In) India, it was 100 per cent. I got them down to 50 per cent, just by talking for about two minutes. It's still 50 per cent vs 2.4 per cent (on imported motorcycles to the US). Again, other than that, it's a very fair deal," the president said.
Trump pointed out to the high tariff by India on import of wines. "India has a very high tariff. They charge a lot of tariffs. You look at whisky... India gets 150 per cent, we get nothing."
India had last February slashed the customs duty on imported motorcycles like Harley-Davidson to 50 per cent after Trump called it "unfair" and threatened to increase the tariff on import of Indian bikes to the US.
In his interaction with lawmakers at the White House, Trump said the Reciprocal Trade Act would give the US workers a fair and level-playing field against other countries.
The US, he alleged, had been taken advantage of by many countries all over the world. "They charge us tariffs and taxes, the likes of which nobody has any understanding. They're so high and so unfair! They also have barriers where we can't go in. They have trade barriers that make it impossible for us to sell our farm products and our other products.
"Whether they think we're very nice or not so smart, they've been doing it for many, many years and we want to end it. Many of these are friends, many of these are allies... but, sometimes, allies take advantage of us even more so than our non-allies," he said.
Trump said the Reciprocal Trade Act would help to solve the problem once and for all. "Whatever the tariff for a foreign country is, we place the same tariff on us."
"What's going to happen, I think, from a practical standpoint, is they won't be charging us tariffs anymore. We'll see. Or we'll charge them a lot. Tremendous amount of money," he said.
The Reciprocal Trade Act will be an incredible tool to bring foreign countries to the negotiating table and to get them to lower tariffs on US products and also to get rid of their trade barriers, the president asserted.
America cannot lose almost USD 800 billion on trade like has been done for many years, he said.
Congressman Sean Duffy, who introduced the Reciprocal Trade Act, has granite from India among his global list of non-reciprocal tariffs.
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'Godman' Kharat held in 8th sexual exploitation case; court denies police remand, sends him to jail
Nashik (PTI): Police took custody of self-proclaimed godman-cum-astrologer Ashok Kharat in an eighth case related to sexual exploitation of women and produced him before a Nashik district court which sent him to jail till May 12 after rejecting the plea for his police remand on Thursday.
On April 29, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Nashik police in north Maharashtra filed a request application in the court demanding Kharat's custody in the eighth case.
After the court granted them the necessary permission, the SIT took custody of Kharat, who was in jail in connection with the seventh case of sexual exploitation registered against him.
The 'godman', named in a dozen FIRs related to rape and financial fraud, was produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate B N Ichpurani in the eighth case through video conferencing due to security reasons.
The eighth case related to Kharat allegedly sexually exploiting a woman who had approached him in search of solutions to her family problems, according to police.
During the hearing, the prosecution demanded police custody of the accused in the latest case.
However, the defence strongly opposed the demand and argued that the SIT was giving same reasons for police custody every time and there was no strong reason for accepting their plea.
The court accepted the argument put forth by the defence and remanded Kharat to judicial custody till May 12 in the eighth case.
The SIT will produce Kharat in the court on Friday again and seek his police custody in the ninth case. As the self-styled godman has been granted judicial custody in the eighth case, he will be sent to Nashik Road Central Jail and the SIT will take his custody from there.
Meanwhile, Kharat's judicial custody in the fourth case ended on Thursday. On April 18, the accused was remanded to judicial custody till April 30 in the fourth case of sexual exploitation of women.
In a related development, the SIT conducted a search at Kharat's office in the 'Canada Corner' area of Nashik city on Wednesday. A 'panchnama' (record of search and seizure proceedings) was conducted and the office was locked and sealed again.
Kharat, a well-heeled man with political connections, was arrested for the first time on March 18 after a woman alleged he had repeatedly raped her for three years.
He is accused of sexually exploiting several women by claiming to have divine powers and knowledge of black magic, and also committing large-scale financial fraud.
The SIT is conducting a probe into 12 cases of sexual exploitation and financial fraud registered against the astrologer in Nashik and Ahilyanagar districts.
