WA apples are flowing back into India, for now

Washington apple growers have reason to celebrate this season after years of trade issues with a key market: India.

That market had been all but closed to Washington apple growers since the Trump administration imposition of charges on some Indian exports prompted the Indian government to respond in kind with tariffs on American goods. An agreement struck last summer at the urging of the Washington state congressional delegation saw India drop those tariffs, returning Washington apples to Indian grocery stores and markets.

Now, with the opening of a long-planned Indian consulate in Seattle, boosters are hopeful the trade relationship can deepen.

At the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 46 last week, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and India Consul General Prakash Gupta joined port and labor officials and apple growers to celebrate the rebound of apple exports since India lifted retaliatory tariffs. 

“Our apple growers, really apples, are the pride of the Washington agricultural economy,” Cantwell said.

Apples are the most important agricultural product in Washington state, which is the top apple producer in the country, according to the Northwest Horticultural Council. In 2021, the Pacific Northwest produced nearly 5 billion pounds of apples.

For Washington apple growers, India had been a $120 million export market. But that changed in 2019, when India increased tariffs by 20% on U.S. apples, walnuts, lentils and chickpeas in retaliation for tariffs placed on Indian steel and aluminum by the Trump administration.

The Trump administration’s tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs “decimated a $120 million market for our agricultural products,” Cantwell said. “With 68,000 people employed in Central Washington in the apple-growing economy, it had an impact.”

Since January 2023, Cantwell began raising the dispute with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. She also met with the U.S. ambassador to India on the issue.

Cantwell, who chairs the Senate commerce committee, also met with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to India and led a letter to President Joe Biden requesting that he negotiate an end to the retaliatory tariffs.

Before India imposed the tariffs, about a third of Washington state’s apple crop was exported. Last season, before the retaliatory tariffs were lifted, 24% of the total crop was exported, said Riley Bushue, the director of congressional relations and export programs for the Northwest Horticultural Council. This season, he expects that number “to be closer to 30%.”

With the tariffs dropped for the current season, total apple sales from Washington to India are estimated to be slightly over $16 million, with growers halfway through the shipping season. Last season’s totals were $1.3 million in sales, according to Cantwell.

The rebound of apple exports is also good news for the ports of Seattle and Tacoma because it increases container traffic.

“Even with the right investments in our terminals, offering the greatest services, if we don’t … have the right [trade] policies in place, it undermines our success,” Port of Seattle Commission President Hamdi Mohamed said at the event Tuesday.

Richard Austin, president of an International Longshore and Warehouse Union local representing some port workers, said dockworkers are ready to work to facilitate Washington apples moving through the Tacoma and Seattle ports.

A new face, the new India consul general in Seattle, was present at the event. When Modi announced the tariff relaxation in June on a state visit to Washington, D.C., he also announced India would open a consulate in Seattle.

The move was in part a response to increasing trade connections between India and the Northwest, which has seen the number of Indians and Indian Americans climb over the past decade. About 161,124 people of Indian heritage lived in Washington in 2020, according to Census Bureau data, a doubling from the decade before. 

The consulate opened in November and is currently at a temporary location in the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle.

Gupta, who later gifted Cantwell an Indian-flag stole, said that, besides the consulate’s priority on technology, he wants to “further strengthen bilateral trade between India and the U.S.,” especially in Washington.

He mentioned going to a Starbucks store in the morning and thinking of how to bring Indian coffee to Starbucks. He said he also would like to import Indian mangoes.

“We look forward to more diversification,” Gupta said.

With Gupta looking on, Cantwell said she wants to grow the apple economy in India and increase the export opportunities with the country.

“What we want to see is more trade opportunities, expanding markets,” she said in an interview. “We, Washington, are a very trade-dependent state.”

Cantwell said Modi’s trade policy is focused on agriculture, and the two governments have been strengthening trade relations. But the future of U.S.-India trade hinges on the upcoming presidential election.

If reelected, former President Donald Trump touted a 10% tariff on all imported goods, which could affect trade relations with India. Trump called his plan “an eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff.” His supporters contend increased prices paid by consumers will be offset by job growth, with one Trump trade adviser telling The New York Times in December that “if you think the person is better off on the unemployment line with a third 40-inch television than he is working with only two — then you’re not going to agree with me.”

That plan could cost U.S. residents $300 billion in taxes and lead to trade retaliation, according to a report by nonprofit Tax Foundation.

Tariff retaliation hurts working families, Cantwell said.

“I would hope that any administration in the future would not see tariffs as the end-all answer,” she said, “because it’s not.”