India blocks US request for settlement panel

Recently, India had blocked a US request to set up a panel to settle its disagreement over retaliatory tariffs on 28 American products. These include the likes of apples, almonds, walnuts, chemicals, chickpeas, pulses and some steel products. This was in response to the US imposing a global additional tariff of 25% and 10% on imports of steel and aluminium products, respectively, in March last year. 

The US had approached the World Trade Organization (WTO) in July, blaming India for according “less favorable treatment” to its products. It said that the additional duties with an annual value of trade worth US$ 1.1 billion, which India imposed through a series of notifications issued between June 2018 and June 2019, are not in sync with provisions of the WTO’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as they unfairly discriminate against US imports vis-à-vis those from other WTO members.