In recent global debates, India has been branded as the “Tariff King” for its agricultural trade policies. But scratch beneath the surface and a very different story unfolds — one that exposes how misleading and unfair this claim truly is.
If global agricultural protections, including tariffs, were displayed in a grand museum, the brightest spotlight would not fall on India. Instead, the true ‘Kohinoors’—or jewels of protectionism—including the steepest, most impenetrable walls of tariffs, subsidies and unjustified non-tariff barriers, would belong to the rich countries. It’s time to set the record straight and call out the emperors of global agricultural protectionism.
Though developed countries often preach free trade and criticise tariffs, many of them quietly maintain some of the highest agricultural tariff walls in the world.
Take Japan: It imposes a jaw-dropping 457 per cent tariff on imported rice, effectively shutting out any import competition. The European Union (EU) slaps tariffs of over 135 per cent on certain dairy products and fruits, while Canada shields its heavily subsidised dairy sector through mind-boggling tariffs that exceed 570 per cent.
The United States is not far behind, imposing tariffs of over 188 per cent on certain cereals and dairy products. If that doesn’t drive one nuts, even meagre peanuts are protected by a whopping tariff of 164 per cent in the US! Ironically, even Switzerland — home to the World Trade Organization (WTO) — imposes sky-high tariffs on certain meat (962 per cent), dairy (888 per cent), fruits (857 per cent) and cereals (275 per cent).
If India’s average agricultural tariffs of 39 per cent are vilified as excessive, then tariffs ranging from 100 to 962 per cent on certain products should qualify these countries as undisputed champions of the protectionist league.
Additionally, these countries have crafted mutually beneficial deals among themselves, granting each other agricultural market access through special instruments such as tariff-rate quotas. These allow mutual trade at lower tariff rates up to certain quantities, while leaving most developing countries stranded outside the gates of high tariffs.
Further, these emperors of protectionism have built tariff regimes that are anything but simple. Unlike India, which maintains 99.7 per cent of its agricultural tariff lines in a simple, transparent and predictable ad valorem (percentage-based) manner, most developed countries operate by highly complex and opaque structures. These countries’ tariff books are riddled with non-ad valorem tariffs, including specific, compound, seasonal and mixed duties that create multiple layers of protection.
For instance, a significant portion of agriculture tariff lines in the US (42 per cent), the EU (32 per cent), Switzerland (67 per cent) and the United Kingdom (26 per cent) are administered on a non-ad valorem basis. The complexity of the tariff description, alongside high rates, makes tariff regimes in developed countries particularly difficult to navigate. More specifically, Canada’s butter tariff of ‘298.5 per cent but not less than $4 per kilogramme’ presents a textbook case of protectionism under the guise of a convoluted system.
To make matters worse, many developed countries repeatedly use special flexibilities like Special Agricultural Safeguards to exceed the maximum tariff levels they committed to at the WTO. Under this mechanism, they can legally impose extra tariffs whenever they feel their farmers are threatened by import surges — even if it means temporarily breaching their own WTO commitments.
In contrast, India lacks such flexibility to swiftly raise tariffs and protect its farmers against sudden market shocks or price crashes.
Further, developed countries pamper their farm sectors with massive subsidies, adding yet another layer of protectionism.
According to their self-declared subsidy figures, countries such as the US and the EU have showered their farmers with subsidies exceeding 100 per cent of the value of production for key crops. US farmers received between 50 per cent and 215 per cent subsidies on cotton, sugar, rice, wool and coffee in certain years. The EU wasn’t far behind, with sugar and cotton subsidies hitting 177 per cent and 139 per cent, respectively, in some years.
When developing countries exposed the devastating impact of these subsidies on farm incomes across the Global South, the developed world did not cut down on support — it simply reshuffled it into different “boxes” under WTO rules, giving the illusion of reform. This “box-shifting” entrenched artificial advantages, depressed global prices and pushed poor farmers out of the market.
Meanwhile, these same countries attack the modest support systems of poorer nations, aiming to overturn their food and livelihood security and turn them into dumping grounds for their subsidised surplus.
The inequality is staggering: In 2023, the top 1 per cent of US farmers captured 21 per cent of all commodity agricultural subsidies, averaging $183,488 per farmer — more than 122 times the average farmer’s income in India.
Yet these nations still cry foul. This selective outrage is a deliberate strategy to protect commercial interests at the expense of millions of farmers in the developing world.
It’s not just tariffs and subsidies that keep markets closed. Rich nations have built an even more formidable fortress around their agricultural sectors, hiding behind non-tariff barriers that are far more restrictive and insidious.
Hundreds of layers of “fancy standards”, from complex sanitary and phytosanitary measures to technical barriers to trade, silently block agricultural products from developing countries. Strict food safety rules, sanitary controls, maximum residue limits and technical norms are often set at levels so high that many developing nations — despite offering safe, high-quality produce — simply cannot afford to comply.
This silent protectionism works effectively for the developed world. Compliance costs skyrocket, markets stay shut and developing-country farmers are squeezed out — all without rich nations having to touch their tariffs.
Developed countries have mastered the art of weaponising non-tariff barriers. What they preach as “consumer safety” or “quality assurance” often translates into nothing more than camouflaged trade walls designed to preserve their own agricultural dominance.
Adding insult to injury, a new trend is emerging — the unilateral use of “sustainability” standards. The EU’s deforestation regulation is a prime example: Under the banner of protecting forests, it imposes sweeping rules that disproportionately hurt exporters from the Global South without offering them the means or time to adjust. In the name of high ideals, the West is once again safeguarding its markets while shifting the burden onto those who can least afford it.
Thus, the criticism levelled against India’s agricultural measures is not only unfair, it is deeply hypocritical. India is playing by the rules and its tariffs are WTO-compliant. It has unilaterally liberalised its agricultural sector and kept its average agricultural tariffs around 39 per cent, far below the WTO-permitted limit.
Let’s be honest: the ulterior motive behind these attacks on developing countries’ agricultural systems is not fairness. It’s about naked commercial interest — dumping heavily subsidised products in developing countries, dismantling the fragile support systems that protect poor farmers and capturing new markets under the false flag of “fair trade”.
The wealthiest nations continue to tilt the field in their favour, while countries like India are left defending hundreds of millions of vulnerable farmers with limited tools. In reality, the global trading system — led by the emperors of protectionism — does not reward the fittest; it protects the financially fattest. If India is called the ‘Tariff King,’ then the ‘Kohinoor’ of protectionism undoubtedly rests with the developed world, just like the real one.
Sachin Kumar Sharma, Kamalini Mukherjee and Suvayan Neogi work at the Centre for WTO Studies, IIFT.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth