From aluminium to rakhis, Durgapur exporters in a tizzy over Trump tariffs
The Statesman | 8 August 2025
Bengal’s lone aluminum panel exporter and women Rakhi exporters based in the Durgapur region are in a quandary after the tariff blitzkrieg announced by US President Donald Trump, especially at a time when their maiden consignments have landed in Chicago, Illinois, and California just last week.
Indian exporters of several items have now been slapped with a hefty 50 per cent tariff load following Trump’s imposition yesterday. Nearly 20 per cent of exports from India, worth $87 billion, head to the US annually, data from the Export Council reveals.
“Had the US, desperately equipped with its upheaval tariff policy, averted the bruising trade war, our importers in Chicago, New York and Washington would have breathed a sigh of relief. That would have obviously helped offbeat product exporters like us to grease our gears and sail well,” remarked Naresh Sharma, the key person in Bengal’s lone Aluminum Composite Panel (ACP) exporter to USA.
ACPs are flat panels composed of two thin aluminum sheets bonded to a non-aluminium core like polyethylene. Other than the plant in Bengal, India has 24 exporters of ACP to the USA. The companies mostly operate in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Together, the companies made 115 shipments to 36 US importers till 31 July this year. China happens to be the largest ACP exporter to US, with 426 shipments during the period.
Similar to Mr Sharma’s predicament, many women in the Kalna area of East Burdwan have also expressed concern with Trump’s tariff bomb. These women are employed in cluster units and manufacture various types of decorative Rakhis, a sacred thread tied on brothers by their sisters, which are much in demand by the Indian diaspora in the US. Tapan Modak, secretary of Kalna Weavers & Artisans’ Society, said today: “Our first consignment reached California through a Mumbai handler for Raksha Bandhan. But, with this new taxation, our artisans are equally apprehensive about future orders if these high tariffs continue.”
Sharma has set up his 30 TPD (tons per day) unit at Ukhra – a rural hub within the coalmine patches of Durgapur – that produces 40,000 square feet of ACP a day. Of this, one-third is meant for shipment to US cities, he said. “I’m now worried that my clients – those who were eager to procure our sheets – won’t place fresh orders, considering the heavier duty taxation to be levied upon them,” he lamented. Sharma’s unit also exports ACP to Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Italy. It imports aluminum coils from China.
Such manufacturing units have an oversized contribution to country’s labour-intensive exports, which, according to Pradip Majumdar, state Panchayat and Rural Development minister, “are now feared to receive a bumpy jolt, if India fails to negotiate with the US properly keeping country’s prime interests in mind.” He added: “This also leads to worry about further absorption of labourers and skilled workers.”
Assumptions were under cloud and the policy-makers in New Delhi are still grappling with Trump’s repeated ‘threats’ on Indian products. India’s Commerce & Industry Ministry is perceiving the issue with great concern and is currently estimating the magnitude of the implications. The Ministry, as the entrepreneurs assume, “is trying to formulate a mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement, prioritising protection and promotion of the domestic entrepreneurs.”