G-20 Summit in Japan: Donald Trump arrives in Osaka, sets tone for 'fractious' meeting of world leaders after his 'India tariff hike' tweet

Osaka (Japan): President Donald Trump arrived in Japan’s Osaka on Thursday on the eve of a high-stakes G20 summit likely to be dominated by trade tensions between the United States and China.

Before leaving, Trump had lashed out at China as well as at allies India, Japan and Germany, setting the tone for what could be a fractious meeting of world leaders.

Taking to Twitter just hours before his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump has offset any hopes that Indians might have of the United States reconsidering its position on adversarial trade policy and a clampdown approach towards the H1-B Visa.

I look forward to speaking with Prime Minister Modi about the fact that India, for years having put very high Tariffs against the United States, just recently increased the Tariffs even further. This is unacceptable and the Tariffs must be withdrawn!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2019

The US president known for his whimsical outbursts on Twitter, took to the microblogging site to stress that India was wrong for imposing retaliatory tariffs on US imports after the latter dropped India from a list of ‘preferred trade partners’ and hiked tariffs on a bunch of Indian goods.

Terming the move “unacceptable”, Trump said that he will take up the issue with Modi.

The US had hiked tariffs on steel imports by 25 percent and aluminium imports by 10 percent last year, neglecting India’s continuous requests for an exemption citing the long-standing trade ties with the country. Apart from a waiver from steel and aluminium duty hikes, India had also demanded suspension of the review of its eligibility for the generalised system of preferences through which the country exports goods worth $5.6 billion to the US. Neither of these demands were met by the US, which in turn were pressing for greater market access in dairy, medical devices and removing some trade restriction measures.