Two senior ministers in the Narendra Modi cabinet on Friday spoke about the work-in-progress India-US bilateral trade deal, iterating the “high degree of urgency” in clinching it in a manner that will safeguard the interests of “the nation and the public”.
In a departure from the government’s stoic silence on US president Donald Trump’s tariff assault on its trading partners that has spooked the global economy, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said India’s trade teams are “really charged up” and want to swiftly seal a bilateral deal with the US. He also stressed on India’s determination to push similar trade deals with the EU and the UK.
“This time around we are certainly geared up with a very high degree of urgency,” he said, referring to the departure from delays in trade negotiations with other countries and blocs.
“We are trying in each case to get the other side to speed it up. This was normally a complaint which was to be made about us in the past, that we were the guys slowing it down,” he said, adding, “It’s actually the other way around today. We are trying to communicate that urgency to all three accounts (the US, EU and the UK).”
“My sense probably is in terms of other parties’ response — at least the US has been so far fairly quick to respond to whatever has been tabled,” he added, while speaking at the Global Technology Summit hosted by Carnegie India.
During Modi’s visit to the White House in February, the two countries discussed a plan to sign a trade deal by the fall of this year to meet the target of bilateral trade volume of $500 billion by 2030. Despite that, Trump hit India with a 26 per cent reciprocal tariffs on April 2, before announcing a 90-day reprieve for most nations. While the additional levies caused havoc on Indian markets amid concerns on the country’s growth prospects, experts also spotted opportunities as the levies on India were less than its regional rivals.
“We want to seize that window so our trade teams are really charged up,” Jaishankar said, adding that India has had more rounds of discussions with the US in the past six weeks than with European nations in the last two years.
Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal also expressed his bullishness on concluding all the trade talks — the discussions are on with the US, the UK and the EU among others — in the spirit of ‘India first’ and to ensure the pathway to Viksit Bharat 2047.
“I have said it many times before that we do not negotiate at the gunpoint. Timely restrictions are good as they encourage us to talk swiftly, but until we are able to protect the interests of the country and people, it is never good to be hasty,” Goyal told reporters when asked about the progress of the India-US BTA.
