Top US senator deems India 'worst' as regards to its high tariffs

Ahead of the crucial meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, a top US Senator has deemed India "the worst" as regards to the high tariffs imposed by the country on American products and said that Washington would aim to bring the mutual tariffs down to zero.

"When you look at the world tariff regime, 67 per cent of all the tariffs in the world disadvantage America. There's a higher tariff on American products in the country in which we do business with. India's the worst," US Senator Lindsey Graham said in an interview to CBS on Sunday.

"They have a 100 per cent tariff on a lot of our products. Either we increase tariffs on Indian products or we all go to zero. The goal is to go to zero," he added.

Trade disputes between New Delhi and Washington had escalated after the latter suspended Indian trade privileges from its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).

The GSP, implemented since 1974, is the largest and oldest US trade-preference scheme and it allows duty-free imports for thousands of products from designated beneficiary countries.

On its part, India had imposed retaliatory tariffs on 25 American goods, less than two weeks after Washington's move.