New Delhi, Jan 19 (UNI) Seen as a reciprocal measure, India has imposed a 30 per cent import duty on yellow peas imported from the US, causing concern among some US lawmakers.
The 30 per cent import duty comes after the US imposed a 50 per cent tariff against India and threatened to raise it to 500 per cent for buying Russian oil.
The increase in import duty has drawn concern from US senators from major pulse-producing states like North Dakota and Montana. They said it places American farmers at a significant competitive disadvantage and urged the Trump administration to negotiate its removal.
The import duty on US yellow peas was imposed on October 29, 2025, and came into effect from November one, 2025. The duty has been imposed to contain imports of imported yellow peas to support domestic pulse prices and local pulse growers.
The Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture said ‘’On October 29, 2025, the Government of India (GOI) imposed a total import duty of 30 per cent ad valorem on CIF value on yellow peas. The new duty increase went into effect on November 1, 2025, reversing the policy of allowing duty-free imports since December 2023.
It said the duty includes a 10 per cent basic duty and 20 per cent agriculture infrastructure development cess (AIDC), and has been applied to shipments dated on or after November 1, 2025.
The measure was implemented to achieve several domestic policy goals, including protecting domestic farmers from a flood of cheaper imports that had been depressing local prices below the government's Minimum Support Prices (MSPs), stabilising domestic markets and encouraging Indian farmers to plant more pulse crops in the upcoming seasons.
The issue has added complexity to the broader India-U.S. trade talks, where agricultural market access remains a key point of contention.
However, India’s imposition of import duty cannot be called the imposition of a tariff because tariffs are not the same, although the terms are often used interchangeably. A tariff is a specific type of duty, but the term duty has a broader scope. All tariffs are considered duties, but not all duties are tariffs.
UNI RB 2048