Hours after the White House released the fact sheet on the India-US trade deal, the Trump administration incorporated some major changes in terms of the details of the agricultural imports to the India.
The US administration removed pulses from the list of products facing tariff cuts and also made some revisions in the list of import items that are supposed to drive $500 billion import growth in India.
In the previously released fact sheet, White House mentioned that India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on ‘certain pulses’. However, in the updated fact sheet, the US administration has removed pulses from the list of items under eliminated or reduced tariff.
Previously White House stated that India has ‘committed to buy’ American products and purchase over $500 billion from sectors including agricultural products. In the updated fact sheet, US administration modified the language and stated that India ‘intends to buy more’ to reach the target of $500 billion import and removed the ‘agricultural’ items from the list.
The White House also removed the statement that India “will remove its digital services taxes”. Rather, it stated in its updated fact sheet that India has only “committed to negotiate” digital trade rules. Nearly 10 months before the announcement of the trade framework, India had removed its 6% equalisation levy on digital advertising services under the through the Finance Bill 2025. This was effective April 1, 2025. Now, the fact sheet stated, “India committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade.”
While there has been no comment or clarification from the US side regarding the changes made in the fact sheet, according to some media reports, corrections were made after New Delhi flagged inadvertent inclusion of wordings and items the two parties did not agree on.
There has been a growing concern among several Indian agricultural exporters and farmers regarding the opening up of the agri sector in India US trade deal. However, government has clarified that India has maintained its protectionist stance for highly sensitive agricultural items.