India, China deepen trade ties amid U.S. tariffs
India is positioning its ports and expanding infrastructure as exporters and shipping lines reroute around summer 2025 shipping logjams tied in part to U.S. tariff policy. The move follows high‑level diplomacy—Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Sept. 1, 2025—and comes as the Trump administration’s 50% tariffs on Indian exports disrupt established trade flows, prompting India and China to emphasize cooperation to stabilize regional trade.
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🔍 Key Facts
- U.S. policy: The article cites President Donald Trump’s imposition of 50% tariffs on Indian exports, a major bilateral trade action.
- Ports/infrastructure: India’s major‑port cargo‑handling capacity nearly doubled from 872 million tonnes (2014) to 1,630 million tonnes (2024).
- Diplomatic timing: Modi and Xi publicly framed India–China ties as "partners, not rivals" after Modi’s Sept. 1, 2025 visit for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
📍 Contextual Background
- The U.S. administration announced tariffs of 50% on imported kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and associated products, and 30% on imported upholstered furniture, to take effect on 2025-10-01.
- Lower-cost furniture sold in the United States tends to be imported from Southeast Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Malaysia and India.
- U.S. consumer prices for living room, kitchen and dining room furniture rose 9.5% from August 2024 to August 2025, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
- Some higher-end furniture sold in the United States is manufactured domestically and is therefore less exposed to import tariffs.
- Canada removed many retaliatory tariffs to match U.S. tariff exemptions for goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact.
- The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact (USMCA) is a trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada.