New Delhi: US President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit India on February 24-25. However, earlier on Monday, the US on Monday removed India from the list of developing countries which are exempted from the countervailing duty (CVD) of the US. To give this exemption, it is seen that these countries are not harming the American industry through unfair subsidy exports.
Apart from India, Brazil, Indonesia, Hong Kong, South Africa and Argentina have also been excluded from the list by the United States Trade Representative (USTR). All these countries were given special preference, due to which they were exempted from CVD investigation. The USTR stated that these countries were exempted on the basis of the 1988 situation, which ‘no longer exists’. India was excluded from this list on the basis that it belongs to the G-20 countries and its contribution to world trade is 0.5% or more.
As part of the trade deal with the United States, India was seeking to restore the status of the country receiving special exemption under the Generalized System of Preference (GSP). However, this move of US has suffered a huge blow to its campaign as GSP status is given only to developing countries. USTR considers countries that have a 0.5% or more share in world trade to be developed countries for the US CVD rule, USTR said in a statement. India accounted for 1.67% of global exports and 2.57% of global imports in 2018. Last year, Trump said that some countries have declared themselves to be developing to take advantage of flexibility in regulations. He instructed his administration to discontinue the special exemption granted to such countries.
USTR said in its statement, ‘Therefore Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are not eligible for the 2% de minimis standard. Despite this, according to the latest figures of the World Bank, the gross national income of each country is less than $ 12,375. ‘ Developing countries are given export or production subsidy of up to 2%.