Jaishankar hopeful on trade deal with US, says outcome not guaranteed

On a US visit, EAM S Jaishankar said a successful trade deal was possible if both sides found a balance, but stressed that the talks remain intricate and unresolved

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is on a three-day visit to the United States, said he was hopeful that India and the US would reach a “successful conclusion” of their bilateral trade deal, but could not “guarantee it”. He stressed the need for “give and take” and for the two countries to find a “meeting ground”.

 

In a conversation with Newsweek Chief Executive Officer Dev Pragad at the publication’s headquarters at One World Trade Centre near the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan, Jaishankar termed the negotiations on the bilateral trade agreement (BTA) as extremely complex, adding that an Indian delegation has been in Washington, DC for the past few days.

 

 

“If they can get a fair balance, you will get an outcome. Obviously, diplomacy is an optimistic profession, so I hope that we will reach there,” he said, adding: “But things being what they are, it's not done till it's done.” 

 

The External Affairs Minister said: “There will have to be give and take, and just like the people in the US have views about people in India, people in India have views about the US too. We will have to find a meeting ground. I believe this is possible. I think we will have to watch this space for the next few days.”

 

Prefacing his remarks on the trade deal, Jaishankar reflected on the broader India–US ties. “Relationships will never be free of issues, even differences. What matters is the ability to deal with issues and keep that trend going in the positive direction.”

 

Regarding the deal, he said: “Yes, we are in the middle — hopefully more than the middle — of a very intricate trade negotiation. Obviously, my hope would be that we bring it to a successful conclusion. I cannot guarantee it because there is another party to that discussion.”

 

Jaishankar clarified that India and the US were not negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) but a BTA. “There is a reason why. If it is an FTA, it goes to the US Congress. If it's a BTA, it doesn’t go to (US) Congress. The boundaries are a little tighter there,” he said.

 

He noted that the negotiators on both sides had been discussing the deal over several months. “I can’t vouch for which country has had how many rounds, but I suspect we would be among the countries which has done the most. Even as I speak, our delegation is in Washington and they have been there for the last few days,” he said.

 

“These are complicated negotiations. You are really looking at thousands of lines and doing very intricate trade-offs, both based on what are actually the market values of those lines and what could be the expected market values of those lines. So these are not simple, back-of-the-envelope calculations,” he added. 

 

On disagreements between India and the US, Jaishankar said: “Sure, it happens. It won't be for the first time,” and recalled tensions during the tenures of the past five US presidents, starting with Bill Clinton. “In fact, at every one of these presidencies, I can think of something which at that time was a friction point,” he said, citing Washington’s plans to sell F-16 aircraft to Pakistan.

 

When asked about US President Donald Trump’s earlier claim that he used trade to stop a recent conflict between India and Pakistan — and whether that had affected trade negotiations — Jaishankar said: “No, I don’t think so. I think the trade people are doing what the trade people should be doing, which is negotiate with numbers and lines and products and do their trade-offs. I think they are very professional and very, very focused about it.”

 

Jaishankar is in the US to participate in the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meetings scheduled for Tuesday. From there, he will join Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro.