President Donald Trump said he was doubling tariffs on India from 25% to 50%.
In an executive order, Trump says “I find that the Government of India is currently directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil” and due to those purchases, imports of Indian goods into the United States “shall be subject to an additional … rate of duty of 25%.”
The order says that the newly announced 25% will stack on top of the 25% Trump says he will hit India with on Wednesday night, when his sweeping global tariffs go into effect on most U.S. trading partners. The additional rate will take effect within 21 days.
A 50% tariff on India would be among the highest on any trading partner in the world. The only countries with tariffs as high as India’s is set to be are Brazil at 50%, Syria at 41%, Myanmar at 40% and Switzerland’s which is set at 39%.
On Tuesday, Trump told CNBC, “India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25% [tariffs] but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil. They’re fueling the war machine.”
India has previously said that it bought Russian oil with U.S. support.
On Wednesday, India responded to Trump’s newest tariffs, saying in a statement that “these actions are unfair, unjustified and unreasonable.” The country’s Ministry of External Affairs added that “India will take all actions necessary to protect its national interests.”
At the time of the announcement, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was in Russia and met with President Vladimir Putin according to images released by state TV.
Trump has also been unhappy with companies recently pivoting their supply chains from China, which for a time he had 145% tariffs on, to other countries like India.
In a May social media post, Trump said “I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.”
India was the tenth-largest source of goods imports into the United States in 2024, according to Commerce Dept. data. Consumers and businesses imported more than $87 billion worth of products.
Apple is set to announce an investment in the U.S. later Wednesday. Most of Apple’s most popular products are currently exempt from tariffs while the Commerce Dept. conducts a so-called Section 232 investigation. The investigation is seeking to determine the national security impact of importing those products and their parts.
Despite the exemptions, Apple took an $800 million hit in the last quarter and predicted it will take another $1.5 billion hit in the next three months.
Apple CEO Tim Cook will appear with Trump at the White House today for that announcement, an official told NBC News.
Last quarter, India produced 44% of U.S. smartphone imports, more than any other country, including China, according to data from the research firm Canalys reported by Bloomberg. That includes iPhones sold in the U.S., the majority of which Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in May will have India as their country of origin starting this quarter.
The shift in Trump’s relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been swift. Modi was the fourth foreign leader to visit Trump in the White House in his second term.
After Trump began his global trade war in April, for weeks White House advisers often mentioned that a trade agreement with India could be the first such agreement reached. The first trade agreement ended up going to the United Kingdom.
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