India eyes ‘successful conclusion’ of India-US trade deal talks, says external affairs minister Jaishankar

Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, on Monday, said that India and the US were looking to close the trade deal soon. In a conversation with Newsweek CEO Dev Pragad at One World Trade Centre in Manhattan, New York, Jaishankar expressed hope of the bilateral talks between the two superpowers reaching a “successful conclusion”.

“I think we’ll have to watch this space for the next few days,” added the external affairs minister.

Stating that Washington and News Delhi were “more than [in] the middle” of a “very intricate trade negotiation”, he asserted that the deal would be more of a “give and take”.

“Just like the US or people in the US may have views about India, people in India have views about the US too.”

“We’ll have to find a kind of meeting ground. I believe it’s possible,” he added, later saying that India was among the countries that worked the most towards trade negotiations.

Jaishankar’s comments come at the heel of the Indian delegation in Washington, D.C., ironing out further finer points of the bilateral trade agreement (BTA).

Earlier, when asked about the BTA, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt “You’ll hear from the President and his team, his trade team, very soon when it comes to India.”

India has been toughening its stance on agricultural duty concessions to the US as part of the BTA, even as both sides are rushing to close the deal ahead of the July 9 deadline for the full implementation of the reciprocal ‘Trump tariff’.

If the trade talks fail, the 26 per cent tariff imposition by the US on India is likely to come into force.

The US has been demanding duty concessions in both agriculture and dairy sectors—both highly sensitive areas politically for the Indian government. India has not opened its dairy sector to any of the bilateral trading partners so far.

The US also demanded other concessions on automobiles (especially EVs), wines, and petrochemical products.

On the other hand, India wants duty concessions on labour-intensive sectors such as textiles, precious gems and jewellery, leather goods, garments, plastics, chemicals, oil seeds, and so on.

If successful, the US-India BTA would more than double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030 from the current $191 billion. India’s merchandise exports to the US rose by around 22 per cent to $17.25 billion in the April-May period this year. Imports jumped by about 26 per cent to $8.87 billion.

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