WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump has asserted that “nothing changes” in the proposed trade deal with India, despite a US Supreme Court ruling that went against his sweeping tariff measures.
In a significant blow to a key pillar of his second-term economic agenda, the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that the tariffs imposed by Trump on countries worldwide were illegal and that the President had exceeded his authority in levying them.
Reacting sharply to the judgment, Trump criticised the justices who ruled against him, describing them as “fools and lapdogs”. “The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I’m ashamed of certain members of the Court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said during a news conference at the White House on Friday, hours after the verdict.
At the briefing, Trump reiterated his claim that he had resolved tensions between India and Pakistan last summer through tariff threats. He also said that New Delhi, at his request, “pulled way back” from purchasing Russian oil and maintained that the Supreme Court’s ruling would not affect the interim trade framework recently announced between Washington and New Delhi. He described his relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “great”.
Asked whether the interim trade agreement framework with India — expected to be signed soon — remained intact after the ruling, Trump replied, “nothing changes”.
“Nothing changes. They’ll (India) be paying tariffs, and we will not be paying tariffs. So deal with India is they pay tariffs. This is a reversal for what it used to be. As you know, India and I think Prime Minister Modi is a great gentleman, a great man, actually, but he was much smarter than the people that he was against in terms of the United States, he was ripping us off. So we made a deal with India. It’s a fair deal now, and we are not paying tariffs to them, and they are paying tariffs. We did a little flip,” Trump said.
“The India deal is on…all the deals are on, we’re just going to do it” in a different way, Trump added.
On ties with India, he said, “I think my relationship with India is fantastic and we’re doing trade with India. India pulled out of Russia. India was getting its oil from Russia. And they pulled way back at my request because we want to settle that horrible war where 25,000 people are dying every month,” Trump said.
He further stated that his relationship with Prime Minister Modi “is, I would say, great.” During the press conference, Trump repeated twice his claim that he had prevented a war between India and Pakistan from escalating.
“I also stopped the war between India and Pakistan. As you know, there were 10 planes were shot down. That war was going and probably going nuclear. And just yesterday, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved 35 million lives by getting them to stop,” Trump said.
“And I did it largely with tariffs. I said, ‘Look, you’re going to fight, that’s fine, but you’re not going to do business with the United States, and you’re going to pay a 200% tariff, each country’. And they called up and they said, ‘we have made peace’,” Trump said.
On Thursday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace on Gaza. At that meeting, Trump reiterated that he had threatened 200 per cent tariffs on India and Pakistan if they did not halt hostilities, repeating his claim that he had stopped the conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Earlier this month, when the US and India announced that they had reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on trade, Trump signed an Executive Order removing the 25 per cent punitive tariffs imposed on India over its purchases of Russian oil. The US President cited New Delhi’s commitment to halt direct or indirect energy imports from Moscow and to increase purchases of American energy products.
Under the proposed arrangement, Washington would lower its reciprocal tariff on Indian goods from 25 per cent to 18 per cent.
In his remarks, Trump defended his broader tariff policy, arguing that it had played a role in resolving multiple international conflicts.
“Tariffs have likewise been used to end five of the eight wars that I settled. I settled eight wars, whether you like it or not, including India, Pakistan, big ones, nuclear, could have been nuclear,” Trump said.
“Prime Minister of Pakistan said yesterday at the great meeting that we had the peace board. He said yesterday that President Trump could have saved 35 million lives by getting us to stop fighting. They were getting ready to do some bad things. But they’ve given us great national security, these tariffs have,” he said.
Within hours of the ruling, Trump signed a Proclamation introducing a “temporary import duty” to “address fundamental international payments problems and “continue the Administration’s work to rebalance our trade relationships to benefit American workers, farmers, and manufacturers.” The measure imposes, for 150 days, a 10 per cent ad valorem import duty on articles imported into the United States and is set to take effect on February 24 at 12:01 a.m. — With inputs from PTI
