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Hindustan Times
9 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
‘If all works out…': Donald Trump on meeting with Ukraine's Zelensky on Monday
US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Oval Office in Washington on Monday, days after his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska ended without a breakthrough on Ukraine. HT Image 'President Zelenskyy will be coming to D.C., Oval Office, on Monday afternoon,' Trump told reporters. He added, 'If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin.' Earlier, Zelensky said he had a 'long and substantive' call with Trump following the Alaska talks. The Ukrainian leader thanked Trump for the invitation and said the Washington meeting would be used to 'discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.'
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First Post
11 minutes ago
- First Post
'Russia lost an oil client': Trump says he ‘may not have to' impose secondary tariffs on India after Putin meet
Trump on Friday said Russia has 'lost an oil client' after Washington imposed penalties on New Delhi for buying Russian crude, but hinted he may not impose similar secondary tariffs on nations continuing such purchases. US President Donald Trump speaks during a visit to the Kennedy Centre in Washington. He warned that Russia would face very severe consequences if it didn't adhere to a ceasefire after Friday's meeting. Reuters US President Donald Trump on Friday said Russia has 'lost an oil client' after Washington penalised New Delhi for buying Russian crude, but further emphasised that he may hold off on imposing similar secondary tariffs on other countries continuing such purchases of oil. 'Well, he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) lost an oil client, so to speak, which is India, which was doing about 40 per cent of the oil. China, as you know, is doing a lot… And if I did what's called a secondary sanction, or a secondary tariff, it would be very devastating from their standpoint. If I have to do it, I'll do it. Maybe I won't have to do it,' Trump told Fox News before leaving for Alaska to meet Putin. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump's tariffs on India His remarks came even as New Delhi has not confirmed any halt in oil imports from Moscow, despite Washington's decision to levy a fresh 25 per cent duty, on top of an earlier 25 per cent tariff, on Indian goods from 27 August. Earlier, Trump (on August 6) escalated the pressure by doubling duties on Indian products to 50 per cent, targeting New Delhi for its continued Russian oil imports. India condemned the move as 'unfair, unjustified and unreasonable,' warning it would hit exports in sectors such as textiles, leather and marine goods. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India 'will not back down' under economic pressure. Bloomberg reported that Indian state refiners stopped buying Russian crude following Trump's action, though no official confirmation has been made. Indian Oil chairman AS Sahney said on Thursday that India 'has not halted purchases from Russia' and continues to buy solely on economic grounds. India, which became Russia's largest oil buyer in 2022 after Western sanctions, faces the prospect of its crude import bill rising by USD 9 billion this year and USD 12 billion next year if it cuts off Russian supplies, according to the State Bank of India. The report suggested Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE could fill the gap. Russian crude is also being offered to Indian refiners at discounted rates as EU sanctions and US threats weigh on global demand, Bloomberg cited data firm Kpler as saying.
Hindustan Times
11 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
How to make sense of Donald Trump's bizarre tariff rates
ON AUGUST 11TH an unpredictable president did a predictable thing: Donald Trump extended America's tariff truce with China for at least another 90 days. The decision followed a frenetic spell of dealmaking and tariff-setting that has changed the terms of entry to the American market for dozens of other trade partners, from Canada to Congo. America has struck deals with the European Union, Japan, Britain, South Korea and Vietnam among others. It has announced punitive duties on Brazil, Canada and India, and set surprisingly harsh terms for Switzerland. It has also had to undo some of what it has done. In recent days Mr Trump has said on social media that gold will not, in fact, face tariffs. Japan's government has also said its exporters will be compensated for new American duties that were wrongly stacked on earlier levies. Containers are seen at the port in Qingdao, in China�s eastern Shandong province on August 11, 2025. (Photo by AFP) / China OUT(AFP) Chart As the dust begins to settle, it is a good time to take stock of the tariff wall Mr Trump has built. Which countries have the easiest and toughest access to the world's biggest market? America's tariff menu has over 17,000 lines, making it difficult to summarise. It distinguishes between horses and asses, fine wool and coarse, grinding machines and kneading machines, small cars (with a cylinder capacity of 1,500cc), even smaller cars (1,000cc) and bigger ones. Some of Mr Trump's tariffs are sweeping, such as the 'fentanyl' duties he has imposed on Canada, Mexico and China because of their role in the illegal opioid trade. Other levies are more targeted, such as his 'sectoral' tariffs on car parts and metals. Mr Trump's 'reciprocal' tariffs, first announced on 'Liberation Day' on April 2nd and revised on July 31st, are somewhere in between (see chart 1). They exempt several important categories of goods, such as smartphones. But they still touch more than half of the goods America bought from abroad last year. One way to sum it all up is to take a simple average across all tariffs. But that would give equal weight to every product, whatever its prominence in international trade. An alternative approach is to compare the duties America now collects with the amount it imports. If customs collects $10bn in duties on $100bn-worth of goods, then the tariff is, in effect, 10%. But this approach has some perverse implications. As the tariff on a product rises, imports will shrink, reducing the tariff's weight in the calculation. Indeed, if it is high enough, imports might grind to a halt. The exorbitant levy will then have no weight in the calculation at all. For that reason, we have weighted America's tariffs on its biggest trading partners according to its import patterns in 2024, before Mr Trump returned to office (see chart 2). The calculations do not yet take account of his recent social-media post on gold or the late tweak to Japan's tariffs. But we have estimated the impact of the 50% tariff imposed on Brazi l to punish it for prosecuting Jair Bolsonaro, its former president. We have also included the extra 25% tariff that India will face from August 27th because of its purchases of Russian oil. Our calculations show that China, despite the truce, still faces the highest average tariff among America's big trading partners at almost 45%. If Mr Trump carries out his threat to punish India for buying Russian oil, the tariff it faces will jump from 21% to 36%, the second highest on our list. Although Brazil's 50% headline rate looks even higher, it does not apply to over 40% of its exports to America. As a consequence, its average tariff, weighted by 2024 imports, is 29%—the third highest among America's big trading partners. Mr Trump has, so to speak, built a tariff wall out of the BRICs. Malaysia (almost 13%) also fares better than many of its regional rivals, such as Thailand (almost 21%) and Vietnam (23%), largely because more of its goods fall into categories exempted from Mr Trump's reciprocal tariffs. Ireland and Singapore also escape lightly, although that may change if Mr Trump introduces new levies on pharmaceuticals. These tariff calculations reveal some winners and losers from Mr Trump's new trade policy. But they are not by themselves a good guide to who will suffer the most. For some exporters, America is a captive market. They can safely add the tariffs to their prices without sacrificing many sales. Others sell more price-sensitive goods, which will lose a lot of their appeal if they become more expensive. Some countries also depend more heavily on sales to America than others. Exports to America are equivalent to almost 28% of Mexico's GDP, for example, but less than 2% of France's. To gauge an economy's vulnerability to American protectionism, Oxford Economics, a consultancy, has combined these three factors: the average tariff a country faces, the price-sensitivity of their exports, and the importance of the American market to their economy (see chart 3). The result provides a rough guide to an economy's direct exposure to American tariffs. Among America's largest trading partners, Oxford Economics finds that Vietnam could suffer the biggest direct hit to GDP. Britain and France will suffer the least. Although China faces a high average tariff, the damage to its economy is relatively modest. After many years waging a trade war, direct exports to America have become a relatively small part of its economy. 'Tariffs are making our Country Strong and Rich,' Mr Trump crowed on social media on August 11th. They also, however, guarantee that America will become steadily less important to its trading partners. That is one predictable consequence of an unpredictable presidency. How-to-make-sense-of-Donald-Trump-s-bizarre-tariff
