Trump tariffs throw Bengal’s aluminium export in limbo
The Statesman | 8 August 2025
Bengal’s lone aluminum product exporter to the US is twitching in apprehension over the tariff blitzkrieg being announced by President Donald Trump, especially at a time when the maiden consignment has just landed in Chicago.
“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 the 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.
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.”