New Delhi [India], November 28 : India is hopeful of signing the first tranche of the India-US Bilateral Trade Agreement within the current calendar year, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal said on Friday.
Addressing the FICCI Annual General Meeting, he indicated that talks have progressed substantially despite recent shifts in global trade conditions.
Reflecting on the negotiations done so far, the Secretary said, "I think our expectations, we are very optimistic and very hopeful that we should find a solution within this calendar year."
The Commerce Secretary cautioned, however, that trade negotiations are unpredictable, noting that "with any trade negotiations, the final deadlines cannot be because even if there is one sticking point or one sticking issue which is in the mind of even one of the partners, the trade deal may not meet that deadline."
India and the US were initially aiming to complete the first tranche of an India-US bilateral trade agreement by fall of 2025, but new developments in the US trade policy landscape, that include tariffs, have altered those plans.
The Secretary explained, "We have found lot of changes in the global trade landscape. One of the key has been in the US landscape, where it came out with reciprocal tariffs, which were imposed on all the trading partners..."
Because of this, India and the US, the secretary said, are now engaged in two parallel negotiations: a broader Bilateral Trade Agreement and a more immediate Framework Trade Deal aimed at addressing high tariffs imposed on India.
The Secretary said the framework discussions have advanced considerably, stating, "we are close, we have tried to iron out most of the issues. Now it is only matter of time when this decision has to be taken, that when the two countries have to find the right landing zone to announce it."
"I think we need to find pathway for complete elimination of reciprocal tariff in our process of doing (full) BTA. So I think that will take a bit of time, and we'll not hurry up those we are working on various aspects of BTA," the secretary said, reiterating hopes for the first tranche of BTA very soon.
Summing up the state of talks, Agarwal said that he thinks they are in a zone where one can say "it is something that we can achieve in a very short while."
The BTA, formally proposed in February following directives from the leadership of both nations, seeks to more than double bilateral trade, from the current USD 191 billion to USD 500 billion by 2030. Talks were first announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington earlier this year.
In recent months, negotiations have continued despite tariff escalations by the United States. US President Donald Trump imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods starting August 1, followed by another 25 per cent increase days later, citing India's continued purchase of Russian oil. The US had imposed reciprocal tariffs on several countries where it faces trade deficits.
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