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Mint
38 minutes ago
- Mint
Trump tariff ultimatum: These countries have struck trade deals as US Prez prepares ‘take it or leave it' letters
As the deadline for the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs nears, United States President Donald Trump stated that he has signed letters to 12 countries detailing the different tariff rates that will be imposed on exports to the US. These 'take it or leave it' offers enclosed in letters are scheduled to be sent out on Monday, July 7. With the letters set to go out Monday, here's a look at the countries that have already secured trade deals with the US, avoiding the 'take it or leave it' letters from Donald Trump. In May, the UK concluded a trade deal with the US that kept a 10 per cent tariff rate and secured preferential treatment for some sectors, including autos and aircraft engines. Under the US-Vietnam trade deal, tariffs on numerous Vietnamese goods have been reduced to 20 per cent, down from the previously threatened 46 per cent. Additionally, many US products will now be able to enter Vietnam duty-free. Japan's tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa held 'in-depth exchanges' with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday and Saturday, reported Reuters, citing the Japanese government, which intends to actively coordinate with the US over the tariff issue. Apart from India, the EU also could not conclude a trade deal with the US. On Friday, EU diplomats said they haven't achieved a breakthrough in trade negotiations with the Trump administration, Reuters reported. A trade deal with India was not finalised and the Indian negotiators returned from the US on Friday, according to the reports. Meanwhile, India has proposed retaliatory duties against the United States under World Trade Organisation (WTO) norms as a safeguard measure against American tariffs on the automobile sector. "The proposed suspension of concessions or other obligations would take the form of an increase in tariffs on selected products originating in the United States," PTI reported, quoting a notification of the WTO. While recognising the challenges of negotiating with more than 170 countries, Trump informed reporters that the letters would be sent to 10 countries at a time with tariff rates in the range of 20 per cent to 30 per cent. 'The letters are better ... much easier to send a letter,' Trump told reporters. Trump's letter, scheduled to be sent out on Monday, comes days before the reciprocal trade deadline on Tuesday, ending the 90-day pause on duties. In April, Trump announced a 10% base tariff rate and additional tariffs up to 50% for trading partners, significantly impacting the financial markets. However, he subsequently paused these tariffs for 90 days, giving time for negotiations with trading partners. Earlier, Trump said that after the July 9 deadline, tariffs may go even higher, up to 70%, effective from August 1 onwards. Trump and his top aides initially said they would launch negotiations with scores of countries on tariff rates, but the U.S. president has soured on that process after repeated setbacks with major trading partners, including Japan and the European Union.
India.com
an hour ago
- India.com
India takes big step against US as talks over trade deal continue, Modi govt put this...
India takes big step against US as talks over trade deal continue, Modi govt put this... India Retaliatory Tariff on USA: Taking a big step, the Indian government on Friday proposed retaliatory tariffs against the United States at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The proposal was made in response to American tariffs on the automobile sector on national security grounds. India-US Trade Deal The move has come at a time when both countries are in the advanced stages of inking an initial mini-trade deal. New Delhi had informed the WTO's Goods Trade Council that it the country will reduce concessions or other obligations on some goods imported from the US in response to tariffs imposed on automobiles on the basis of national security. New Delhi's negotiation team, which was led by Special Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Rajesh Agarwal on Monday returned to India from US. Why Did Trump Impose Tariffs As A Safeguard? On India's proposal, WTO has said that under the proposed suspension of concessions or other obligations, tariffs on select products which are manufactured in America will increase. Notably, on March 26, America had imposed a 25 percent tariff on automobiles and auto parts coming from India as a safeguard measure. The tariff came into effect from May 3 this year. Trump had said that his country has been suffering losses in global trade for several years. He states that this step will strengthen country's manufacturing sector as there will be less competition from companies of other countries in the US market. What Was India's Reply? The Trump administration imposed tariffs on various automotive and related goods, including light trucks, cars, and numerous components. These tariffs, however, were not registered with the World Trade Organization (WTO). India contends that these tariffs violate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 and existing security agreements. Following consultations under Article 12.3 of the WTO's Agreement on Safeguards, India has reserved the right to retaliate by suspending concessions under Article 8.
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Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business Standard
Mines, magnets and Mao: How China built its global rare earth dominance
Rare earth metals were an afterthought for most world leaders until China temporarily suspended most exports of them a couple of months ago. But for almost half a century, they have received attention from the very top of the Chinese government. During his 27-year rule in China, Mao Zedong focused often on increasing how much iron and steel China produced, but seldom on its quality. The result was high production of weak iron and steel that could not meet the needs of the industry. In the late 1940s, metallurgists in Britain and the United States had developed a fairly low-tech way to improve the quality of ductile iron, which is widely used for pipelines, car parts and other applications. The secret? Add a dash of the rare earth cerium to the metal while it is still molten. It was one of the early industrial uses of rare earths. And unlike most kinds of rare earths, cerium was fairly easy to chemically separate from ore. When Deng Xiaoping emerged as China's paramount leader in 1978, he moved quickly to fix the country's iron and steel industry. Deng named a top technocrat, Fang Yi, as a vice premier and also as the director of the powerful State Science and Technology Commission. Fang immediately took top geologists and scientists to Baotou, a city in China's Inner Mongolia that had vast steel mills and the country's largest iron ore mine nearby. Baotou had already made much of the iron and steel for China's tanks and artillery under Mao, but Fang's team made an important decision to extract more than iron from the mine. The city's iron ore deposit was laced with large quantities of so-called light rare earths. These included not just cerium, for ductile iron and for glass manufacturing, but also lanthanum, used in refining oil. The iron ore deposit also held medium rare earths, like samarium. The United States had started using samarium in the 1970s to make the heat-resistant magnets needed for electric motors inside supersonic fighter jets and missiles. 'Rare earths have important application value in steel, ductile iron, glass and ceramics, military industry, electronics and new materials,' Fang declared during his visit to Baotou in 1978, according to an exhibit at the city's museum. At the time, Sino-American relations were improving. Soon after his Baotou visit, Fang took top Chinese engineers to visit America's most advanced factories, including Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas assembly plants near Los Angeles. Rare earth metals are tightly bound together in nature. Prying them apart, particularly the heavier rare earths, requires many rounds of chemical processes and huge quantities of acid. During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had each developed similar ways to separate rare earths. But their techniques were costly, requiring stainless steel vats and piping as well as expensive nitric acid. China ordered government research institutes to devise a cheaper approach, said Constantine Karayannopoulos, a chemical engineer and former chief executive of several of the largest North American rare earth companies. The Chinese engineers figured out how to separate rare earths using inexpensive plastic and hydrochloric acid instead. The cost advantage, together with weak enforcement of environmental standards, allowed China's rare earth refineries to undercut competitors in the West. Facing increasingly stiff environmental regulations, almost all of the West's refineries closed. Separately, China's geologists discovered that their country held nearly half the world's deposits of rare earths, including rich deposits of heavy rare earths in south-central China, valuable for magnets in cars as well as for medical imaging and other applications. In the 1990s and 2000s, Chinese refinery engineers mastered the task of prying apart heavy rare earths. That gave China an almost total monopoly on heavy rare earth production. 'The Middle East has oil,' Deng said in 1992. 'China has rare earths.' By then, he and Fang had already trained the next leader to guide the country's rare earth industry: a geologist named Wen Jiabao. He had earned a master's degree in rare earth sciences in the late 1960s at the Beijing Institute of Geology, when most of the rest of China was paralyzed during the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. Wen went on to become a vice premier in 1998 and then China's premier from 2003 to 2013. During a visit to Europe in 2010, he declared that little happened on rare earth policy in China without his personal involvement.
