India Says No Plans to Retaliate for Trump’s Preferential Trade Treatment

India does not plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on US goods after US President Donald Trump said he intends to end India’s preferential trade treatment, a top trade official said.

Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said the withdrawal of the Generalised System of Preferences for Indian products would have limited impact.

The two countries had been working on a trade package to address each other's concerns, he added.

Under the GSP programme, India exports $5.6 billion worth of goods to the United States duty-free.

India is the world's largest beneficiary of the GSP programme and ending its participation would have a very strong effect against the country.

US-India trade ties were hurt after India set up new rules on e-commerce that restrict the way Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc-backed Flipkart do business.

The e-commerce rules followed a drive-by New Delhi to force global card payments companies such as Mastercard Inc and Visa Inc to move their data to India and the imposition of higher tariffs on electronic products and smartphones.

The products covered under GSP are mainly agricultural products including animal husbandry, meat and fisheries, and handicraft products. These products are generally the specialized products of developing countries.