A high-level delegation from the United States is set to begin its today (Monday), with the aim of finalising the details of the interim trade pact and taking forward negotiations under the broader India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA).
While the US team is being led by its chief negotiator, Brendan Lynch, the Indian delegation is headed by Darpan Jain, Additional Secretary at 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 Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement last week.
The visit, scheduled from June 1 to 4 in New Delhi, will follow recent diplomatic mobility between India and the US and build on the Indian delegation’s visit to Washington in April this year.
The engagements stem from the wherein both the countries agreed on a framework of the first phase of the BTA or an interim trade agreement.
The two countries now need to finalise the legal text for that deal. The framework reaffirmed the countries’ commitment to the broader India-US BTA negotiations.
According to that framework, the from 50 per cent. It had removed the 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods for buying Russian oil and was to cut the remaining 25 per cent to 18 per cent under the pact.
However, days after New Delhi and Washington issued the joint statement, the US Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs, which were imposed under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
Following the legal setback, Trump announced the imposition of 10 per cent tariffs on all countries for 150 days, starting February 24. As the tariff landscape has changed in the US, both sides may like to relook at the framework of the agreement.
Under the agreed framework, New Delhi proposed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.
India has also signalled plans to import US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal worth USD 500 billion over a period of five years.
The upcoming series of meetings between the Indian and US delegations will be crucial, as India enjoys a comparative advantage over its competitor countries. Now, with all US trading partners facing a uniform 10 per cent tariff, the pact requires recalibration.
The US Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, recently indicated that negotiations between the two sides are nearing completion.
“Just last week, India had sent a team to Washington DC to finalise the last 1 per cent of that trade deal. Next week we will welcome a US delegation here to continue those talks,” he said on Friday while addressing the US-India TRUST Initiative event at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.
“We fully expect that the trade deal will be signed over the next few weeks and months,” Gor was further quoted as saying by news agency ANI.