On February 6, 2026, the United States and India signed a significant trade agreement that will lower the cost of American luxury automobiles and motorcycles forOn February 6, 2026, the United States and India signed a significant trade agreement that will lower the cost of American luxury automobiles and motorcycles for

US, India signs trade agreement that will lower the cost of American luxury automobiles and motorcycles for Indian consumers

2026/02/08 05:15
4 min read

On February 6, 2026, the United States and India signed a significant trade agreement that will lower the cost of American luxury automobiles and motorcycles for Indian consumers.

Companies like Tesla, meanwhile, are still expecting improved access to India’s expanding market because electric vehicles are not covered by the pact.

The agreement has significant implications for high-end American automobiles. India will reduce taxes on gasoline-powered vehicles with displacements of more than 3,000cc. Buyers currently pay up to 110 percent in duties. Over the next ten years, those taxes will be reduced to 30 percent under the new accord. All import taxes will be eliminated for Harley-Davidson motorbikes.

A $500 billion commitment for closer ties

President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi worked together to hammer out the agreement. The agreement functions as a commercial agreement between the two nations. The present 50 percent tariff on goods originating from India will be reduced to 18 percent in the United States. In exchange, India has pledged to purchase $500 billion worth of American goods. India also consented to reduce its oil purchases from Russia.

India’s commitment to forging closer connections with the United States is demonstrated by the $500 billion pledge. India is prepared to spend more for strategic and political reasons as a result of the switch from cheaper Russian oil to more costly American energy.

Electric vehicles shut out of agreement

The most surprising part of the deal is what got left out. Electric vehicles will not get lower taxes, even though Tesla’s Elon Musk has spent years asking Indian officials to reduce import duties. He has argued that the high taxes make his cars too expensive for Indian customers. By keeping EVs out of this trade deal, Indian leaders made their position clear. Foreign electric car companies will only get special treatment if they build factories in India.

The government appears to be protecting India’s own electric vehicle industry. The Union Budget for 2026-27 showed this strategy clearly. The budget removed import taxes on 35 different types of machinery used to make lithium-ion batteries. It also provided tax breaks for equipment that processes important minerals needed for batteries.

A senior official from the Ministry of Heavy Industries explained the reasoning behind the decision. “The goal is not just to import technology, but to build the ‘ore-to-magnet’ value chain within our borders,” the official stated. By keeping taxes high on finished electric cars but making it cheaper to buy factory equipment, India is pushing global companies to choose between paying heavy duties or building local factories.

Compared to another trade pact India recently worked on, the American arrangement appears to be different. India made better conditions in negotiations with the European Union. Deeper tax cuts, down to 10 percent, were negotiated with the EU and extended to more vehicle categories. Those discussions also covered several electric models.

Former trade negotiator Rajesh Agrawal drew attention to the distinction between the two agreements. “This framework demonstrates that India is willing to be flexible on traditional sectors, but will not compromise on the future of mobility,” he stated. “The U.S. deal is a pragmatic trade-off: American engines for Indian textiles and chips.”

The comparison demonstrates how India’s approach to trade negotiations varies according to the partner. The goal of the EU accord was to link industries in a variety of sectors. The US agreement focuses more on energy security and cooperation to counter certain foreign economic practices.

Soon after both nations sign the final documents in March 2026, the new tariff rates will go into force. American automakers Ford and General Motors now have a new chance to sell high-end cars in India, a market that has proven challenging to access due to strong protectionist regulations.

Indian customers will likely notice the changes quickly. Powerful sports cars and expensive motorcycles from America will become more affordable. However, the country’s push for cleaner transportation remains focused on vehicles made inside India.

The agreement favors traditional gasoline-powered vehicles while keeping the door closed on imported electric cars. This creates an odd situation where high-emission luxury vehicles become cheaper while the move toward cleaner technology depends on meeting local manufacturing requirements.

The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.

Market Opportunity
Polytrade Logo
Polytrade Price(TRADE)
$0.03538
$0.03538$0.03538
-1.66%
USD
Polytrade (TRADE) Live Price Chart
Disclaimer: The articles reposted on this site are sourced from public platforms and are provided for informational purposes only. They do not necessarily reflect the views of MEXC. All rights remain with the original authors. If you believe any content infringes on third-party rights, please contact [email protected] for removal. MEXC makes no guarantees regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the content and is not responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided. The content does not constitute financial, legal, or other professional advice, nor should it be considered a recommendation or endorsement by MEXC.

You May Also Like

HitPaw API is Integrated by Comfy for Professional Image and Video Enhancement to Global Creators

HitPaw API is Integrated by Comfy for Professional Image and Video Enhancement to Global Creators

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — HitPaw, a leader in AI-powered visual enhancement solutions, announced Comfy, a global content creation platform, is
Share
AI Journal2026/02/08 09:15
Journalist gives brutal review of Melania movie: 'Not a single person in the theater'

Journalist gives brutal review of Melania movie: 'Not a single person in the theater'

A Journalist gave a brutal review of the new Melania documentary, which has been criticized by those who say it won't make back the huge fees spent to make it,
Share
Rawstory2026/02/08 09:08
Facts Vs. Hype: Analyst Examines XRP Supply Shock Theory

Facts Vs. Hype: Analyst Examines XRP Supply Shock Theory

Prominent analyst Cheeky Crypto (203,000 followers on YouTube) set out to verify a fast-spreading claim that XRP’s circulating supply could “vanish overnight,” and his conclusion is more nuanced than the headline suggests: nothing in the ledger disappears, but the amount of XRP that is truly liquid could be far smaller than most dashboards imply—small enough, in his view, to set the stage for an abrupt liquidity squeeze if demand spikes. XRP Supply Shock? The video opens with the host acknowledging his own skepticism—“I woke up to a rumor that XRP supply could vanish overnight. Sounds crazy, right?”—before committing to test the thesis rather than dismiss it. He frames the exercise as an attempt to reconcile a long-standing critique (“XRP’s supply is too large for high prices”) with a rival view taking hold among prominent community voices: that much of the supply counted as “circulating” is effectively unavailable to trade. His first step is a straightforward data check. Pulling public figures, he finds CoinMarketCap showing roughly 59.6 billion XRP as circulating, while XRPScan reports about 64.7 billion. The divergence prompts what becomes the video’s key methodological point: different sources count “circulating” differently. Related Reading: Analyst Sounds Major XRP Warning: Last Chance To Get In As Accumulation Balloons As he explains it, the higher on-ledger number likely includes balances that aggregators exclude or treat as restricted, most notably Ripple’s programmatic escrow. He highlights that Ripple still “holds a chunk of XRP in escrow, about 35.3 billion XRP locked up across multiple wallets, with a nominal schedule of up to 1 billion released per month and unused portions commonly re-escrowed. Those coins exist and are accounted for on-ledger, but “they aren’t actually sitting on exchanges” and are not immediately available to buyers. In his words, “for all intents and purposes, that escrow stash is effectively off of the market.” From there, the analysis moves from headline “circulating supply” to the subtler concept of effective float. Beyond escrow, he argues that large strategic holders—banks, fintechs, or other whales—may sit on material balances without supplying order books. When you strip out escrow and these non-selling stashes, he says, “the effective circulating supply… is actually way smaller than the 59 or even 64 billion figure.” He cites community estimates in the “20 or 30 billion” range for what might be truly liquid at any given moment, while emphasizing that nobody has a precise number. That effective-float framing underpins the crux of his thesis: a potential supply shock if demand accelerates faster than fresh sell-side supply appears. “Price is a dance between supply and demand,” he says; if institutional or sovereign-scale users suddenly need XRP and “the market finds that there isn’t enough XRP readily available,” order books could thin out and prices could “shoot on up, sometimes violently.” His phrase “circulating supply could collapse overnight” is presented not as a claim that tokens are destroyed or removed from the ledger, but as a market-structure scenario in which available inventory to sell dries up quickly because holders won’t part with it. How Could The XRP Supply Shock Happen? On the demand side, he anchors the hypothetical to tokenization. He points to the “very early stages of something huge in finance”—on-chain tokenization of debt, stablecoins, CBDCs and even gold—and argues the XRP Ledger aims to be “the settlement layer” for those assets.He references Ripple CTO David Schwartz’s earlier comments about an XRPL pivot toward tokenized assets and notes that an institutional research shop (Bitwise) has framed XRP as a way to play the tokenization theme. In his construction, if “trillions of dollars in value” begin settling across XRPL rails, working inventories of XRP for bridging, liquidity and settlement could rise sharply, tightening effective float. Related Reading: XRP Bearish Signal: Whales Offload $486 Million In Asset To illustrate, he offers two analogies. First, the “concert tickets” model: you think there are 100,000 tickets (100B supply), but 50,000 are held by the promoter (escrow) and 30,000 by corporate buyers (whales), leaving only 20,000 for the public; if a million people want in, prices explode. Second, a comparison to Bitcoin’s halving: while XRP has no programmatic halving, he proposes that a sudden adoption wave could function like a de facto halving of available supply—“XRP’s version of a halving could actually be the adoption event.” He also updates the narrative context that long dogged XRP. Once derided for “too much supply,” he argues the script has “totally flipped.” He cites the current cycle’s optics—“XRP is sitting above $3 with a market cap north of around $180 billion”—as evidence that raw supply counts did not cap price as tightly as critics claimed, and as a backdrop for why a scarcity narrative is gaining traction. Still, he declines to publish targets or timelines, repeatedly stressing uncertainty and risk. “I’m not a financial adviser… cryptocurrencies are highly volatile,” he reminds viewers, adding that tokenization could take off “on some other platform,” unfold more slowly than enthusiasts expect, or fail to get to “sudden shock” scale. The verdict he offers is deliberately bound. The theory that “XRP supply could vanish overnight” is imprecise on its face; the ledger will not erase coins. But after examining dashboard methodologies, escrow mechanics and the behavior of large holders, he concludes that the effective float could be meaningfully smaller than headline supply figures, and that a fast-developing tokenization use case could, under the right conditions, stress that float. “Overnight is a dramatic way to put it,” he concedes. “The change could actually be very sudden when it comes.” At press time, XRP traded at $3.0198. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Share
NewsBTC2025/09/18 11:00