Govt to negotiate, reach agreement with Trump administration: Finance Adviser

Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed has said that the government wants to resolve the issue of additional tariffs imposed by the US on Bangladeshi products through negotiations and reach an agreement with the Trump administration. 

The Finance Adviser was addressing the 45th consultative committee meeting of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) as the chief guest ahead of the budget for the next fiscal year (FY26) held at a hotel in the capital on Wednesday. 
The meeting was organized by the apex business organization FBCCI.

“We will negotiate and reach an agreement with the Trump administration. But they cannot be pushed. The US government has given three months, if necessary, we will want more time”, he said.

Shedding lights on his recent tour to the USA, the Finance Adviser said apart from the meetings with the World Bank and the IMF teams, he said they also discussed with various departments of the USA like Agriculture, Treasury Department as well as discussed with around 80 representatives from the US businesses.

“We’ll try to consider your recommendations as much as possible, but you’ll have to keep in mind that the era of exemptions and rebate has gone away, in fact I’m in the mood of eliminating most of the exemptions,” he added. 

The Finance Adviser went on saying, “We’re under serious pressure as we’ll have to mobilize more resources, we’ll also need money since we’ll have to give you incentives…giving exemptions and rebate means expenditure as we’ll not get it anymore.”

Highlighting the need for paying due taxes, he said definitely all concerned would get overall benefits through paying taxes while this is the principle for taxation.