“The U.S. did sign a trade deal since the latest set of 301s was launched, this was with Ecuador, (on March 13), a country with an economy at least 30 times smaller than India and whose bilateral trade with the U.S. is a fraction of U.S.-India bilateral trade.”

“These probes— which are conducted annually on different countries— will enable the imposition of tariffs on top of the universal tariff rate of 10% , imposed on February 24 using Section 122 of the U.S.’s Trade Act, following the Supreme Court ruling. Section 122 tariffs, applied temporarily when there is a balance of payments issue, can be applied for no more than 150 days and cannot exceed 15% as per law.”

“Mr. Trump had said in February that he would increase the universal 10% rate to 15%. However, this has not happened and officials in DC appeared unsure whether it would happen at all.”

“A question to the White House on the timing of any such hike went unanswered. The USTR also did not provide information on possible rate hike, when approached by The Hindu.”

“Hiking this universal tariff to 15% would also complicate Washington’s agreements with countries that had reciprocal tariffs of less than 15%.”

“Meanwhile, countries are busy with another part of the trade agenda: the World Trade Organization’s 14th ministerial conference in Cameroon March 26-29. Among the contentious topics is trade in e-commerce, where Indian and American positions are not aligned. India has for long wanted an end to the moratorium on tariffs on various forms of e-commerce (software downloads, digital music, etc.) while the U.S. would like to make this permanent.”