With agreed-upon 18% U.S. tariffs still pending, it could happen in ‘3-4 days’ sources say

U.S. President Donald Trump can reduce tariffs on imports from India to 18% from the current 25% without the need of a fresh Executive Order, according to a senior official in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Instead, Mr. Trump can simply update the U.S. Federal Register with the new tariffs, the official explained, adding that this should take place in the next “3-4 days”.

According to a joint statement issued on February 6, 2026, the U.S. said it had agreed to reduce reciprocal tariffs on imports from India to 18% from the 25% it had set in July 2025. Over and above this, the U.S. had in August 2025 also imposed a penal tariff of 25% on Indian goods in response to India’s energy trade with Russia, taking the total tariffs to 50%. 

Mr. Trump on February 6 issued Executive Order 14384, which removed the 25% penal tariffs linked to India’s import of Russian oil from February 7 onwards. In an interview to The Hindu on February 9, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said that he hoped to see the order to reduce the remaining 25% reciprocal tariffs to 18% in the subsequent week. 

As of now, however, the 25% reciprocal tariffs remain in force. 

The reason for this delay, a senior official in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is that the U.S. government has its own processes and that reciprocal tariffs are more complicated than penal tariffs.  

“They have their own processes that take time, and these are reciprocal tariffs that need to be reduced,” the official told The Hindu. “We expect it in the next 3-4 days or maximum early next week. They do not need to necessarily reduce the tariffs through an executive order. They can simply enter it into their Federal Register.”

In the interview, Mr. Goyal had explained that the U.S. tariffs, having been imposed through executive orders, could also be amended through executive action and so did not need to wait for the formal Interim Agreement to be signed. India, on the other hand, could not reduce tariffs on imports from the U.S. until the legal document was signed, which Mr. Goyal said was expected in mid March.