NEW DELHI: Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday criticised the government over the trade and tariff agreement with the United States and accused it of having “sold out Bharat Mata” by agreeing to open the country’s price sensitive agriculture and dairy markets to American farm goods.
The government should be “ashamed”, Gandhi thundered, echoing criticism by opposition leaders that the India-US trade deal, by allowing US goods to enter, had endangered the livelihoods of crores of farmers, particularly those with small or marginal holdings, and those from allied industries.
At the core of the critique was his claim US tariffs had jumped from the average three per cent pre-2025 – as part of baseline MFN, or most-favoured nation – rates to 18 per cent under this month’s deal.
In-between they were as high as 50 per cent after Donald Trump complained of unfair tariffs and annocuned ‘reciprocal’ levies, and then added a 25 per cent ‘penalty’ on India for buying Russian oil.
“You have sold India… are you not ashamed of selling India?” Gandhi said today, “For the first time in history our farmers are facing a storm (and) you have opened the door to crush our poor farmers.”
“No Prime Minister has ever done this,” he said and insisted there is “no logic” in the deal.
“What have you done… in the beginning, three per cent was the average. Now it has now gone to 18 per cent – a 6x increase. US imports will go from US$46 billion to US$146 billion… this is absurd.”
“They have no commitment to us… we have a commitment to them,” Gandhi said, referring to a provision that says India will buy US$500 billion in US energy and tech products. “We are standing like fools. Our tariff has gone up to 18 per cent… and theirs has come down from 16 per cent to zero.”
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju interrupted at this point and demanded Gandhi, who is also the Leader of the Opposition, present facts to back his claims about the deal with the US.
“India’s progress makes you unhappy. The Congress weakened the nation till 2014 (and is) now unhappy… ” Rijiju said. He also hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “the strongest ever”.
Rahul Gandhi’s renewed criticism of the trade deal came hours after the United States backtracked on a ‘factsheet’ it had released with details of the agreement.
The revised document removed ‘pulses’ from a list of US products, including several agricultural and processed food items, for which India had agreed to either lower or reduce tariffs.
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