The mismatch in the posts put out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump on the broad contours of the trade agreement and India’s silence on certain key claims made by the White House provided the Opposition enough room to tear into the government’s narrative on the deal.
More ammunition was provided by US secretary of agriculture Brooke Rollins, who said India had agreed to open up to American farm products.
“Thank you @POTUS for ONCE AGAIN delivering for our American farmers. New US-India deal will export more American farm products to India’s massive market, lifting prices, and pumping cash into rural America. In 2024, America’s agricultural trade deficit with India was $1.3 billion. India’s growing population is an important market for American agricultural products and today’s deal will go a long way to reducing this deficit. America First victory on top of the dozens of deals for ag #FarmersWin #USIndiaTrade #RuralAmerica,” Rollins wrote.
Till evening, the Centre did not respond to queries of the media or the Opposition inside and outside Parliament, fuelling speculation that the celebration in the ruling camp notwithstanding, India had given in to Trump’s pressure tactics. “We need clarity” was a common refrain among Opposition leaders. “We would love to celebrate if it’s good news, but give us clarity…,” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor told reporters outside Parliament.
Trump has claimed the Prime Minister has committed India to buying American products at a much higher level in addition to over $500 billion of US energy, technology, agricultural, coal and many other products. Also, according to Trump, India has agreed to stop buying Russian oil and reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to zero.
The leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, said: “Prime Minister Modi is compromised. The Prime Minister is too afraid to let me speak in Parliament about Naravane, the Epstein files and how he has surrendered on tariffs.” Rahul sought to draw a link between India agreeing to the deal and the case against the Adani group in the US, stating that it targets “Narendra Modi’s financial structure”.
Flagging Rollin’s post, the Congress alleged “Not Make in India, Sell India”. According to Congress, the US secretary of agriculture’s statement makes it clear that the Modi government has entered into this deal by ignoring the interests of Indian farmers. “This will harm farmers in India. Indian farmers will now be forced to compete with American
farmers in their own country. This is nothing less than a direct attack on Indian farmers. Narendra Modi must answer: Why did he trade away the interests of India’s farmers?” the party asked.
Basing its understanding of the deal on Trump’s social media post, which was more detailed than the Prime Minister’s, the CPM politburo said that if true, it “shows up the highly unequal nature of the trade deal with India in a subordinate position, circumscribing its sovereignty”. The party demanded that the government place the full trade agreement in Parliament.
In the Rajya Sabha, CPM’s John Brittas questioned the Prime Minister’s announcement of the agreement on X. “Is this House more important than Elon Musk’s X platform? Seeing the reaction of the Prime Minister and cabinet minister (on the trade deal on X), Parliament is inferior to Elon Musk’s X platform. All the policy decisions should
be announced on the floor of the House rather than on X platform.
“Tomorrow the question will be asked: ‘Who is the petroleum minister of India?’… It is Donald Trump. He will tell you where to buy the oil from. We were the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement. We never bowed to anybody,” he said.
Throughout the day, government floor managers in Parliament maintained that commerce minister Piyush Goyal would make a statement in both Houses but that did not materialise until late Tuesday.