India only reserved right to impose retaliatory duty on US goods; may resolve issue via BTA talks

14 May 2025 Evaluate

India has only reserved its right under World Trade Organization (WTO) norms to impose retaliatory duties on certain American products over the US' steel and aluminum tariffs and it may choose to resolve the issue through the ongoing bilateral trade agreement (BTA) negotiations between the two countries. Earlier also a similar notification has been issued to the WTO by India against the European Union over EU's steel safeguard measure of 2019 and 2021, but it has not been implemented to date.

Accordingly, India's current notification to WTO Council for Trade in Goods against US' steel and aluminium tariffs only reserves India's right under the Agreement on Safeguards to retaliate at any future date. However, it is for India to decide whether to effectuate these proposed retaliation after 30 days of the notification or later or resolve it as part of ongoing BTA negotiations. 

The two countries are negotiating the pact to boost two-way commerce to $500 billion by 2030 from the present $191 billion. In June 2019, India imposed higher tariffs on 28 US products after the US removed India from its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and continued its 25 per cent and 10 per cent tariffs on certain steel and aluminium products. That action, which covered about $240 million in trade value, marked India's first use of WTO-sanctioned retaliation.  However, the duties were withdrawn in September 2023, following the decision of both countries to resolve seven WTO disputes.

That time also, the US had initially imposed additional duties on certain steel (25 per cent) and aluminium (10 per cent) products in March 2018. On May 18, 2018, India notified WTO Council for Trade in Goods of India's proposed suspension of concessions. This notification reserved India's right to effectuate the proposed suspension, however, it was implemented by India after a year, in June 2019.


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