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‘India on our radar’: Trump aide Peter Navarro's big remark after White House's ‘shadow trans-shipment’ report
Peter Navarro's remarks come amid a White House report that accuses India and other nations of helping Chinese goods evade tariffs.
White House advisor Peter Navarro, who is infamous for his anti-India rhetoric in the past over trade issues, has made yet another remark, this time with reference to a US report naming India as part of a “shadow trans-shipment network” that helps Chinese goods evade tariffs.
The White House report is by Navarro, White House trade and manufacturing adviser. He claims that the US is losing some $19 billion to $26 billion in annual tariff revenue to goods, mostly from China, that are transshipped through third countries to escape US import duties.
During his remarks on the matter, Navarro said: “India is well on our radar screen”.
The White House adviser said that new trade frameworks pursued by the Trump administration are going to contain provisions that ensure trade partners that engage in the practice will be penalized, the Associated Press reported.
Navarro also alleged India and other countries could be using the trans-shipment shadow network to avoid new tariffs, referring to fresh tolls imposed by the US administration over Russian oil purchase. India, along with China, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan face 100% tariffs under Russia sanctions bill for continued significant purchases of Russian energy.
White House report on shadow-transshipment network
The report identifies about 40 countries, including India, that have an elevated risk of being sources of illegal transshipments of goods, many of which are linked to minimally processing, relabeling and repackaging of Chinese-origin components, Reuters reported.
In a report, 'The Great Transshipment Scam', Navarro said the transshipments became more prevalent after 2018, when the Trump administration imposed Section 301 tariffs on China to counter "unfair trade practices."
"For years, the great transshipment scam has let Communist China launder its exports through more than 40 countries," Navarro was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
The countries that comprise China's Shadow Transshipment Network include many of America's largest trading partners, ranging from Mexico and Canada on US land borders to the European Union, India, Japan, and South Korea.
"China began using these third countries for minor processing, relabeling, repackaging, reinvoicing, or routing changes that created the appearance of a new national origin while leaving the underlying Chinese content largely intact," Navarro has alleged in the report.
Navarro's remarks against India
Navarro has repeatedly criticised India, even calling it the “Maharaja of tariffs,” while defending US retaliatory tariffs in response to India's purchase of Russian oil. He earlier claimed that India was not involved in the Russian oil trade before the Ukraine war began in 2022. He said India's involvement increased after the war started.
Early this week, he responded to criticism in India over his comments on New Delhi and its trade policies, telling his critics not to attack him as he said such an approach is not how problems are resolved in America.
“I actually got firebombed by the Indian continent on the internet with all sorts of nasty little attacks. And all I would say is, don't do that. That's not how we resolve problems here in America,” he told reporters at the White House.
