Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday criticised the government over the trade and tariff agreement with the United States and accused it of having “sold out Bharat Mata” by agreeing to open the country’s price sensitive agriculture and dairy markets to American farm goods. The government should be “ashamed”, Gandhi thundered, echoing criticism by opposition leaders the India-US trade deal, by allowing US goods to enter, endangered the livelihoods of crores of farmers, particularly with small or marginal holdings, and those from allied industries. At the core of Gandhi’s critique was his claim US tariffs had jumped from the average three per cent pre-2025 – as part of baseline MFN, or most-favoured nation – rates to 18 per cent under this month’s deal. In-between they were as high as 50 per cent after Donald Trump’s ‘reciprocal tariff’ spree and the added 25 per cent ‘penalty’ on India for buying Russian crude oil. “You have sold India… are you not ashamed of selling India? For the first time in history our farmers are facing a storm (and) you have opened the door to crush our poor farmers.” “No Prime Minister has ever done this,” he said and insisted there is “no logic” in the deal. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju interrupted at this point and demanded Gandhi, who is also the Leader of the Opposition, present facts to back his claims about the deal with the US. #ParliamentBudgetSession #ParliamentSession #RahulGandhiSpeech #ParliamentBudgetSession #Parliament #RahulgandhiSpeech #RahulGandhiParliamentSpeech
About The Author
