On Sunday, the US president appeared to substantially expand his tariff plans, insisting that "all countries" would be targeted. "You would start with all countries, so let's see what happens," Trump told reporters, dashing hopes that he might scale back some of the levies or that they would target a select group of nations. "I haven't heard a rumour about 15 countries, 10 or 15... Essentially all of the countries that we are talking about. We have been talking about all countries, not a cutoff," he said. 

A day before the expected announcement, Trump claimed India would be dropping its tariffs "very substantially". "I think a lot of (countries) will drop their tariffs because they have been unfairly tariffing the United States for years. If you look at the European Union on cars, the EU has already dropped their tariff to 2.5 per cent. It was announced a couple of days ago. A very small tariff. The US charged very little. I think I heard that India, just a little while ago, is going to be dropping its tariffs very substantially. I said why didn't somebody do this a long time ago? A lot of countries are going to be dropping their tariffs," he said.

Hours before that, the White House said India imposes a 100 per cent levy on American agricultural products. "If you look at the unfair trade practices that we have - 50% from the European Union on American dairy. You have a 700 per cent tariff from Japan on American rice. You have a 100 per cent tariff from India on American agricultural products. You have nearly a 300 per cent tariff from Canada on American butter and American cheese," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, holding up a chart with tariffs levied by countries, including India. 

From 2021-22 to 2023-24, the US was India's largest trading partner. The US accounts for about 18 per cent of India's total goods exports, 6.22 per cent of imports, and 10.73 per cent of bilateral trade, a PTI report said. With the US, India had a trade surplus (difference between exports and imports) of $35.32 billion in goods in 2023-24. The figure was $27.7 billion in 2022-23, $32.85 billion in 2021-22, $22.73 billion in 2020-21 and $17.26 billion in 2019-20.