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Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal on Tuesday said India is actively engaged in trade discussions with the US, and hopes to conclude the talks "sooner than later" in a manner that restores deeper market access for domestic exporters. He also said that despite challenges in the US, Indian exporters have maintained their exports in that market. "We are also very deeply engaged with the United States, which is your biggest market, (and) which is having the maximum tariff as of now. "But we hope sooner than later, this is also something that we will be able to close in a way that will give deeper access in the US also, and we are able to trade that we used to do," he said. The secretary was addressing exporters in a programme organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) here. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, too, on Monday said that India is at an advanced stage of negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement with the US. US Deputy Trade Representative
Negotiations for the proposed bilateral trade agreement between India and the US were launched in March 2025, and so far, five rounds of talks have been held, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. Similarly, twelve rounds of negotiations have been held so far between India and the European Union (EU) for the proposed free trade agreement. The last round was held from 7-11 July in Brussels. "India-US bilateral trade agreement negotiations were launched in March 2025. Five rounds of negotiations have been held, the last being from July 14-18, 2025, at Washington," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. Replying to a separate question, the minister informed that intellectual property (IP) filings in the last five years have increased by 44 per cent to 6,89,991 in 2024-25 from 4,77,533 in 2020-21. The highest growth was observed in Geographical Indications (GI) with a 380 per cent increase, followed by Designs (266 per cent),
India could be among the countries expected to finalise a trade deal with the US soon, as President Donald Trump steps up pressure by issuing formal tariff letters to several nations, but New Delhi must tread carefully, economic think tank GTRI said on Tuesday. "Trump's model isn't a free trade agreement, it's a YATRA - Yielding to American Tariff Retaliation Agreement," the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said. The US has extended the deadline for countries to finalise bilateral trade deals with the US from July 9 to August 1, giving a final three-week window before sweeping country-specific tariffs come into force, it added. The extension is part of a broader trade offensive launched on April 2, when Trump identified about 60 countries for special tariffs unless they signed new deals aligning with American trade interests. So far, only the United Kingdom and Vietnam have complied. A temporary ceasefire deal with China is also in place. "Now, Trump is escalating the press
Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Friday that he held telephone talks with US President Donald Trump and agreed to hold productive" discussions at an upcoming tariff talks between the two sides. Investment, not tariffs, Ishiba told reporters after the talks. He said Japan's position to keep pushing Washington to drop all recent tariff measures is unchanged and that he stands by plans to push for Japanese investment to create more jobs in the US in exchange. The two leaders held talks just after Economic Revitalization Minister Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator, headed to Washington for a third round of talks with his US counterparts. In the earlier rounds of talks, the US had not agreed to the Japanese requests. Ishiba said he reminded Trump that Japan's position was for the US administration to scrap all recent tariffs on imports from Japan, to which the US president made no specific response. I expressed my expectations for productive discussion to be held,