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Trade Deal
The United States is very optimistic about the progress of trade negotiations with India, and a bilateral trade deal remains a priority for the Trump administration, State Department Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said. Pigott was responding to a question by PTI during a roundtable interaction organised by the New York Foreign Press Centre with a select group of international journalists on Thursday. "On trade, we have been very optimistic about the progress of trade talks," he said. Noting the recent visit to India by officials from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Pigott also underscored the role played by US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor in advancing trade and investment ties between the two countries. "He has also made this trade issue really important", most notably through these trade discussions, but also through bilateral investments between the two countries, including millions of dollars worth of SelectUSA investments, Pigott said. SelectUSA is a .
The proposed 12.5 per cent tariff on India by the US Trade Representative (USTR) under Section 301 investigations goes beyond the scope of the provision, and New Delhi should challenge the ambit of the probe, think tank GTRI said on Wednesday. The 12.5 per cent tariff exceeds the USA's WTO commitment. The US Trade Representative has proposed to impose 12.5 per cent additional duties on 54 countries, including India, for failing to prohibit the import of goods produced with forced labour. The action follows investigations launched against 60 countries over what the USTR described as their failure to impose and effectively enforce bans on imports made with forced labour. "The current investigation exceeds the scope of Section 301, which deals with market-access barriers faced by the US firms in the country being investigated and not what it imports and from where", the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said. It added that the investigation is not based on allegations that Indi
The chief negotiators of the US and India will begin four-day talks here on Monday on finalising the details of the interim trade pact, whose framework was agreed upon in February. The US team will be led by its chief negotiator Brendan Lynch. India's chief negotiator is Darpan Jain, who is an additional secretary in the Department of Commerce. The two sides are "proposed to finalise the details of the interim agreement and take forward the negotiations under the broader BTA on multiple areas such as market access, non-tariff measures, customs and trade facilitation, investment promotion, and economic security alignment," the commerce ministry has said. On February 7, India and the US issued a joint statement finalising the contours or framework of the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement (BTA) or an interim trade agreement. Now, both sides will have to finalise the legal text for that deal. The framework reaffirmed the countries' commitment to the broader India-US BTA ...
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal gave assurances that the India-US interim agreement is close as he provided an "encouraging update" on bilateral trade negotiations during an interaction with eminent business leaders, the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) said. Goyal also discussed ways to further deepen India-US trade, investment and supply-chain partnerships during the closed-door roundtable interaction on Thursday. The Consulate General of India in New York, in collaboration with USISPF, hosted Goyal for the closed-door roundtable discussion, where he engaged with over 50 prominent business and industry leaders. Goyal said he highlighted India's strong growth story, reform-driven business environment, and expanding opportunities for global investors under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Discussed ways to further deepen India-US trade, investment, innovation, and supply-chain partnerships for shared prosperity," he said in a post on X. USI
With India signing a series of free trade agreements with developed countries, the government is working on an FTA utilisation plan to help maximise benefits from these pacts, an official said. Since 2021, India has finalised free trade agreements (FTAs) with Mauritius, Australia, the UAE, Oman, New Zealand, the EFTA (European Free Trade Association), the European Union (EU), the UK and US. These pacts cover 38 countries whose combined global imports stand at about USD 12 trillion. The main Indian sectors that have received duty-free market access in these FTA partner countries include agriculture, textiles and apparel, gems and jewellery, leather and leather goods, engineering, electronics, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has held a series of meetings with industry associations, businesses and export promotion councils (EPCs) on ways to increase utilisation of these agreements. He suggested that businesses leverage these pacts to boost .
Repeated setbacks faced by US President Donald Trump in American courts have further heightened uncertainty over the US tariff regime, and India should wait for the United States to evolve a more stable and legally predictable trade framework before moving ahead with the proposed bilateral trade agreement, experts said. They said that this ruling is a crucial reminder that Trump's global tariffs violated WTO (World Trade Organisation) rules, and their striking down by US courts is a positive signal for multilateral trade norms. In another setback to the White House, a US federal court has struck down the 10 per cent global tariffs slapped by Trump, terming them "invalid" and "unauthorised by law". These new tariffs were imposed by Trump on all countries, including India, on February 24 for 150 days following an earlier US Supreme Court verdict that struck down his earlier sweeping levies. "The continuing uncertainty around US tariff policy, with major Trump-era tariffs repeatedly .
India and the US are "very, very close" to signing the trade deal and need to get over "that last hurdle", US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on Tuesday. Landau said that India and the US have been negotiating for months and it was important for the two sides to "reach some closure" and move on with the many other issues on the agenda. "We are very aware of India's importance on the world stage. I think it is very important to get a final resolution of that trade deal. We have been talking now for months that we are very close, and I think we are very close. But we have to get over that last hurdle," Landau told reporters on the sidelines of the SelectUSA Investment Summit at National Harbour in Maryland near here. "I don't have any huge inside information to provide on when that is coming, but I can just reiterate that I believe that we are very, very close," said Landau, who recently visited India. "I think ultimately it's important that we reach some closure on
About a dozen officers from India will reach Washington on April 20 for three-day talks with the US authorities on the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement (BTA), an official said. As the tariff landscape has changed in the US, both sides may like to relook at the framework of the agreement, the text of which was released on February 7. Following the decision of the US Supreme Court against the sweeping tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on a number of countries, the Trump administration imposed a 10 per cent tariff on all countries from February 24 for 150 days. "The meeting will happen from April 20-22 in Washington DC. India's chief negotiator Darpan Jain (additional secretary in the department of commerce) is leading the team. Officers from customs and external affairs ministry are also part of the Indian team," the official said. Further, the two unilateral investigations launched by the US Trade Representative (USTR) may also figure in the three-day ...
The European Parliament voted Thursday to approve a trade deal between Washington and Brussels but with amendments added to protect European interests should the United States fail to hold up its end of the bargain. The deal was negotiated last July in Turnberry, Scotland, by US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It set a 15 per cent tariff on most goods in an effort to stave off far higher import duties on both sides that might have sent shock waves through economies around the globe. New language now says that the deal can be suspended if Washington "undermined the objectives of the deal, discriminated against EU economic operators, threatened member states' territorial integrity, foreign and defence policies, or engaged in economic coercion." That clause was forged because of the tensions over Greenland, said Bernd Lange, a German lawmaker and head of the EU's parliamentary trade committee. Trump drew widespread condemnation across th