The United States under my leadership cannot be fooled, Donald Trump said on Monday, adding India's reduced tariff on American motorcycles from 100% to 50% was still too high and unacceptable to him.
"We're not the foolish country that does so badly. You look at India, a very good friend of mine, Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi, you take a look at what they've done, 100 per cent tax on a motorcycle. We charge them nothing," Trump told CBS news in an interview on Monday.
Trump was referring to the import tariff on the Harley Davidson motorcycles, an issue close to his heart. He wants India to reduce the tariff to zero.
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"So, when Harley sends over there, they have 100 per cent tax. When they (India) send in — they make a tremendous number of motorcycles — when they send them in, no tax. I called him. I said it's unacceptable,” Trump said, referring to his conversation with Prime Minister Modi.
"He (Modi) reduced it by 50 per cent with one phone call. I said it's still unacceptable because it's 50 per cent versus nothing. It's still unacceptable. And they're working on it," he said, indicating that the two countries are still in talks to resolve the issue of import tariffs on American motorcycles.
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"But if I didn't, if we didn't have the power of what we have, and if we weren't the bank--well, if we weren't the bank we wouldn't even be talking about it because nobody would care. But we're the bank that everybody wants to rob, and that's what they've been doing for a long period of time. USD 800 billion we have in trade deficits with other countries. So you tell me who made those deals,” he said in response to a question.
(With inputs from PTI)
