Trump tariffs: India up guards against dumping, says some countries, commodities under 'intense watch'

India has stepped up scrutiny on potential surges in imports from other countries such as China, Vietnam and Indonesia amid escalating trade uncertainties amid United States’ reciprocal tariffs.

While releasing the trade data for March, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said, “We are looking at import surges, we have identified countries and commodities for intense watch. We are monitoring those imports through an inter-ministerial committee. And based on that we will take whatever actions that are required.”

The inter-ministerial committee for import surge monitoring has representatives from department of commerce, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and Central Board of Indirect Taxes.

The commerce ministry said that a recent assignment highlighted the risk of merchandise dumping into India due to reciprocal tariffs amid global trade tensions.

Rising US costs may prompt exporters from other countries that too face a trade deficit with America to divert goods to India, potentially triggering import surges, the ministry added.

The ministry said that Additionally, Chinese retaliatory tariffs on US goods could further increase the inflow of agricultural products into India.

The inter-ministerial committee is monitoring weekly as well as monthly import trends of commodities as well as key countries.

Moneycontrol had previously reported that the Centre is actively working to block any bid to use India as base to re-route commodities from China to the US soil.

Earlier this month, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had held a critical meeting with several stakeholders, exporters. The Minister reportedly told the exporters that goods from China must not be re-routed to the US via India.

As per the report by Global Trade Research Initiative, during Donald Trump’s first presidency, Beijing had successfully managed to re-route commodities via India and other countries. This had led to a growth of over $1 trillion in China’s outbound shipments.

Late on April 9, Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for more than 75 countries, sending global markets to record highs, barring China.

He also announced stepper 125 percent tariff on Chinese goods, second such hike in 24 hours. Earlier in the day, a 104 percent tariff on Chinese goods came into effect, with Beijing hitting back with reciprocal tariffs on American exports.

While, the country-specific reciprocal tariffs are on pause for 90 days, New Delhi is facing a relative lower duty from US at 26 percent compared to Indonesia (32 percent), and Vietnam (46%).