U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States will impose a 25-percent tariff on imports from India, starting on August 1.
In a Truth Social post early Wednesday, Trump said that, despite India being "our friend," the United States has done "relatively little business with them because their tariffs are far too high," adding that India has the "most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary trade barriers of any country."
He also said that India "has always bought a vast majority of military equipment from Russia, and is Russia's largest buyer of energy."
Therefore, he continued, India will pay a tariff of 25 percent, plus "a penalty for the above," starting on the first day next month.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC on Monday that the United States needed more time for talks with India to gauge the country's willingness to open its market more to American goods.
Bloomberg reported Tuesday that any rate of 20 percent or higher would come as a disappointment for India, which had been seeking a better deal than the 19 percent that Trump had offered Indonesia and the Philippines.