India Is Shooting Itself in the Foot on Trade — Again
The government knows new jobs are a priority. But its latest policies hurt the companies that create them.
President-elect Donald Trump has renewed his threat to impose a tariff wall on Indian imports to the US. One of the few recognizable threads knitting together the tangle that is Trump’s long tenure in public life is a disdain for “unfair” tariffs. India is often singled out for failing to reciprocate America’s generally low import taxes. If India charges us 100 per cent tariffs, Trump asked, do we charge them nothing for the same goods?
Trump was, however, barking up the wrong tree. The real problem with India’s trade policy lies in a seemingly innocent administrative procedure that doesn’t sound half as dangerous as tariffs. Most people operating in India today don’t complain about import taxes so much as they do about non-tariff barriers to trade. In particular, companies are flummoxed by a new weapon in the bureaucrats’ arsenal they call “Quality Control Orders.”