BUSINESS/TARIFFS/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “When it comes to trade, it often seems that India and the United States are playing a perplexing game of multidimensional chess. On Friday [11-2-18], for example, India will decide whether to impose or again delay tariffs on American almonds, apples, walnuts and processed metal products in retaliation for the Trump administration’s decision in March to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Next week, President Trump and his advisers will have to decide whether to penalize India for failing to abide by his Sunday [11-4-18] deadline for all countries to stop importing oil from Iran…Yet Mr. Trump has voiced little interest in such policy questions or the rounds of negotiations that have kept the two countries from an all-out trade war. Instead, he has been publicly riveted by one small pawn in the game: India’s tariffs on a few hundred high-end Harley-Davidson motorcycles sold here each year. Three times this year when Mr. Trump brought up the American trade relationship with India, he complained about the import duties — currently 50 percent — that India levies on Harleys and other foreign-made motorcycles.”
–Vindu Goel, “No Easy Ride for U.S.-India Trade as Trump Focuses on Harley,” The New York Times online, October 31, 2018