Hours after Washington found flattering adjectives for New Delhi, the bill arrived. US President Donald Trump, never one to miss a crisis without billing someone else, announced a fresh 25% tariff on countries trading with Iran.
In short, India, one of Tehran’s top five trading partners, stands at the receiving end yet again.
According to government data published by a section of the media, total trade between India and Iran in 2024–25 stood at Rs 14,000 crore. India exported goods worth Rs 10,000 crore and imported Rs 3,700 crore during the same period.
Trade volumes, however, have been shrinking for years. Since 2019, when India stopped importing Iranian oil due to earlier Trump-era sanctions, bilateral trade has contracted sharply. From nearly Rs 1.5 lakh crore in 2019, trade fell by 87% to Rs 19,100 crore in 2024.
India’s exports to Iran include organic chemicals, basmati rice, tea, sugar, pharmaceuticals, fruits, pulses and meat products. Iran has been among the largest overseas markets for Indian basmati rice, and the new tariff regime could disrupt those exports. Imports from Iran include methanol, petroleum bitumen, liquefied propane, apples, dates and chemicals.
The move reportedly came shortly after US ambassador-designate Sergio Gor described India as the United States’ “most essential partner”.
Trump, tightening economic screws on Iran, was quoted as saying that any country doing business with Tehran would “immediately” face a 25% tariff on trade with the US.
He mentioned the order was final and conclusive. For India, already operating without a trade deal with Washington, this announcement threatens to push tariffs on its exports to the US to an eye-watering 75%.
Indian goods are already subject to a 50% US tariff, the highest imposed on any country. That figure includes a 25% reciprocal duty and an additional 25% punitive levy imposed by Trump over India’s continued purchases of Russian oil. Add the new Iran-linked penalty, and the layered tariff reaches 75%, a number that speaks for itself.
Hovering in the background is another legislative hammer, media reports outlined.
A US bill proposing 500% tariffs on countries that continue to buy Russian oil despite sanctions has already been approved by Trump. The bill explicitly targets countries such as India, China and Brazil, ensuring that trade diplomacy remains a contact sport.
New Delhi’s links with Tehran are neither recent nor cosmetic. India has maintained long-standing trade and strategic ties with Iran, including energy imports and the development of the strategically significant Chabahar Port. The port is seen as India’s gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia, neatly bypassing Pakistan in the process.
India is developing the Shahid Beheshti terminal at the port, and the fresh tariff is unlikely to directly impact construction or operations in the immediate term.
Last year, India secured a six-month waiver from US sanctions related to Chabahar, which is set to lapse on April 29. The exemption had earlier been withdrawn in September 2025 when the Trump administration cancelled the waiver first issued in 2018.
Chabahar’s importance is not symbolic. The deep-water port can handle very large, heavily loaded ships and sits next to the Gulf of Oman at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. It’s a critical shipping route linking the Middle East with Asia, Europe and North America. It allows India to bypass Pakistan while accessing Afghanistan and Central Asian markets.
The port is also viewed as India’s strategic counter to Pakistan’s Gwadar port, where China has invested heavily, securing access to the Arabian Sea. Through Chabahar, India gains the ability to monitor Chinese activity in the Persian Gulf.
The China link in the story is inevitable. China is Iran’s biggest trading partner, but somehow India keeps getting dragged into Washington’s line of fire. Tariffs are announced, numbers are thrown around, and New Delhi is expected to nod along.
The timing of Trump’s announcement has raised eyebrows. It came just hours before Indian and US officials were scheduled to hold another round of talks on the long-pending trade deal. A section of experts has viewed the tariff threat as another pressure tactic aimed at extracting concessions from India on US terms.
Recent remarks by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have reinforced that perception. Lutnick revealed that the India-US trade deal collapsed not due to policy disagreements, but because Prime Minister Narendra Modi declined to personally call Trump to finalise it.
Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Evan A Feigenbaum summed up the moment in a social media post, noting that if 50% tariffs (already the highest globally) were insufficient, another 25% was now being imposed, leaving little of the relationship left to damage.
Any sustained enforcement of the tariff could force Indian firms to scale down their Iran operations to safeguard access to the US market, potentially reshaping supply chains that have already been under strain.
Taken together, the optics are stark. Even as Washington’s ambassador-designate hails India as indispensable, Trump has moved swiftly to penalise it, citing trade with Iran as the grievance. The contradiction has only deepened strains in India-US ties, underscoring that in Trump’s worldview, praise is cheap but tariffs are not.
Also Read: EU Announces Retaliatory Steps Over US Tariff Move https://www.vibesofindia.com/eu-announces-retaliatory-steps-over-us-tariff-move/
