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I heard the other day that India's tariffs are some of the highest in the world.

Over a billion people and the market is and will remain pretty much untapped to the U.S. and others.

But don't let that stop us from sending jobs over there.

This morning on Good Morning America they pointed out how the call center people in India use more american sounding names so people don't catch on. They also take classes to sound more american.

How charming.

I heard the other day that India's tariffs are some of the highest in the world.

I've been in this type of debate a few times here. It amazes me how there is a strong component here that doesn't care. They see their stock prices rise, or they are involved in offshoring, it's good for them, so they cling to the "free market".
I bring up unfair tariffs, (as you mention), the inequity in pollution control and worker safety, the squalid conditions for people in other countries, (essentially slave labor). None of that matters to our free market friends. Their retort is chanted long and loud: Re-train, start your own business, you are on your own. Don't look to government to pick my pocket to pay for your job!
It has been mentioned that the government, OUR government, is actively funding moves overseas, as well as foreign governments providing inducements. Is this a fair playing field? No! But the free market proponents don't even address that.
Finally, one bright gentleman mentioned that when the U.S. was the primary trading partner with Great Britain in the late 19th early 20th century that the U.S. had restrictive tariffs, and Great Britain was strongly entrenched in a free market phiolosphy, (again, an unfair playing field). What happened? The U.S. overtook G.B. in wealth, and economic power. There are complex reasons for this, but are tariffs a factor? It's a fact that it happened.

Goodness! There you go, bringing facts into the discussion! Next thing, you'll start pointing out that India has a long history of NOT being a friend of the US - and hence, just might hold our financial interests and information hostage to their own agenda.

But what the hey, lower prices trump all other arguments.

26 - 'I heard the other day that India's tariffs are some of the highest in the world. '

http://www.usibc.com/Documents/HuntsmanSpeech.pdf

'India's Circumspect Embrace of Globalization'
Keynote Address by Ambassador Jon M. Huntsman Jr.
Deputy United States Trade Representative
First Manhattan India Dinner
Organized by U.S.-India Business Council, U.S. Council for International Business and Asia Society
February 5, 2003

India has made in the past, and has begun to change very slowly. India’s tariffs are today, more than ten years after the beginning of economic reform, the highest in the world, except for those of Pakistan, according to the World Bank.

India likes to export, but has a grudging attitude at best towards imports. Indians understand the almost universally accepted truth that a vibrant export sector is necessary for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Yet they remain skeptical of imports - even of products such as life-saving medical equipment not manufactured in India. So the country maintains tariffs among the highest in the world, imposes additional taxes when tariffs come down, and erects non-tariff barriers. These multiple, onion-like barriers discourage potential exporters.

For example, India’s tariff and taxation structure undermines its tariff commitments in the WTO. This structure has impeded trade in such items as medical equipment, chemicals, soybean oil, and distilled spirits. Differential treatment of imports and domestic production of phosphates, for instance, has caused a $400 million U.S. market to evaporate while India’s agricultural sector suffers from lack of quality fertilizer. Special taxes have increased the price of imports so that they no longer are competitive in the Indian market. The recent change in customs valuation methodology for imported films threatens to suffocate substantial opportunities in bilateral trade and creative collaboration.

India has proposed that by 2010 all peak tariffs be reduced to three times a country’s average duty. In the case of the United Sates, our average duty is 2.6 percent; three times that amount would be 7.8 percent, which is very close to the 8 percent we have proposed.

Trade in services has created a substantial number of jobs in India. For example, General Electric employs more than 15,000 people in India who provide services such as accounting and customer service to its offices throughout the world. Approximately 3,300 software engineers are employed by Hewlett-Packard Co. in India. In addition, as I have already noted, developed-country firms are increasingly outsourcing back-office and technology services from Indian firms, creating high-paying jobs in engineering, medical services, research and development, and other services fields. The tremendous success of India’s high-technology sector offers a potent argument for India’s interest in an open trading system. India exported over $6 billion worth of software last year -- accounting for 13 percent of the country’s total exports. Over the past five years, the annual growth rate for India’s software exports has been 45 percent. And there’s every reason to believe it will keep growing. The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University gives its ‘top quality’ ranking to only 48 software companies in the world; nearly two-thirds of them are based in India.