India does not want to give any signal that it is protectionist, the top bureaucrat in the finance ministry said, after slashing import duties on high-end motorcycles, amid US President Donald Trump’s moves on tariffs.

Sunday’s remarks came a day after Trump ignited a trade war with sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. None were aimed at India, although Trump had called it a tariff abuser during his election campaign last year.

“We don’t want to give anybody any signal that we would like to be protectionist,” Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey told Reuters in an interview after the budget, unveiled on Saturday.

“Our stance is that we don’t want to increase protection.”

Trade and immigration issues will take centrestage when Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets this month with Trump, whose administration India has sought to placate after his accusations that its tariffs hurt prospects for American firms.

India’s budget cut import tariff slabs, reducing average basic customs duties on scores of items such as raw materials for domestic industries like textiles and automobiles, Pandey added.

Average import tariffs on essential goods, mainly items of food and raw material, range from zero to 5 per cent, while........

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