Opposition parties and farmer groups on Saturday assailed the joint statement on the India-US trade deal, claiming that the agreement was heavily one-sided and detrimental to the interests of peasants.

“It seems that Narendra Modi and his two friends, Ambani and Adani, have sacrificed the interests of the common man, the ordinary citizen of India, for their own interests, making them slaves. This is not just a compromise with our self-respect; this is a compromise with our national interest…. This is not a deal; this is a surrender,” Congress publicity head Pawan Khera told reporters.

He pointed out that 40 per cent of India’s exports to the US were duty-free even before this deal, and slashing import tariffs on US agricultural and food products would “break the backbone of Indian farmers”.

Khera added: “They (US) increased the tariff from 3 per cent to 50 per cent and then reduced it to 18 per cent…. The government has set a target that in the next five years there will be a bilateral deal of approximately $500 billion, roughly 44 lakh crore. The commerce minister did not say how much export target India has set.”

AAP MP Sanjay Singh said minister Piyush Goyal lied in Parliament when he said the agriculture sector was secure. “Today, his reality and the truth stand exposed before the entire country,” he said.

“American farmers receive subsidies ranging from ₹70 lakh to ₹80 lakh, and according to annual figures, even more than ₹1 crore, whereas for Indian farmers, agriculture is a means of survival…. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has mortgaged the country’s self-respect and dignity because his friend Adani received summons and got trapped in corruption cases involving thousands of crores in the US. Due to the pressure arising from his name appearing in the Epstein files, this step was taken,” Singh added.

Farmers’ collective Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) resolved to intensify its agitation in the run-up to a national general strike of industrial and agricultural workers on February 12 against a raft of laws that they say are leading to their impoverishment.

Warning Modi against signing the agreement, the SKM said it considered “the role of the commerce minister as a traitor and demands his immediate resignation”.

The SKM said the Union budget had exposed declining agricultural growth (3.1 per cent) and employment generation, with no proposal from the government to fix the problem. It said 172 million rural households and 86 per cent small and marginal farmers were “under heavy threat of an imperialist onslaught on their livelihood, being promoted by the government of India”.

Shiv Sena (UBT) youth president Aaditya Thackeray questioned the government’s credibility. “So now when questioned about components of the announcements of the India-US trade deal, the external affairs minister says that the commerce minister would be able to comment. The commerce minister says external affairs minister would be able to comment. Is there an internal fight in these ministers or departments or both are clueless? The larger point is, at least the POTUS takes open media questions. Haven’t seen governance become more of a circus than this earlier,” he posted on X.

Former Union finance minister P. Chidambaram said “the framework deal is heavily tilted in favour of the US and the asymmetry is obvious”.

“... While India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of food and agricultural products, the US will impose a tariff of 18 per cent on goods originating from India. These goods will include textiles, leather goods, organic chemicals etc. and the US will remove the tariff only upon a ‘successful conclusion of the Interim Agreement’.”