India is aiming to finalise the first tranche of a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) with US by the end of November. International trade experts caution India not to bow down to the last-minute pressure and maintain its autonomy.
Trade experts say that there has been a trend where the Trump administration had deviated from what had been agreed upon. Thus, before coming to an agreement India needs to have everything documented. “India must ensure that it does not become another victim of a one-sided deal announcement by Trump whereby what is agreed to by the officials of the two sides gets unilaterally changed by President Donald Trump to the disadvantage of partner country,” says Abhijit Das, a trade policy expert and former head of the Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.
India and the US started off well after Modi met Trump in February in the White House and aimed to have first tranche of BTA negotiations by fall of 2025. However, with the US imposing 50% tariff on India from August onwards as a penalty for buying Russian oil, it has not been a smooth trajectory for India.
“The biggest obstacle to an India-US trade deal today isn’t tariffs — it’s oil. Washington wants India to scale back Russian crude imports, arguing that India’s purchases are “fuelling the Ukraine war.” New Delhi, however, views these imports as essential for energy security and inflation control. Unless both sides find a workable formula, this could become the deal-breaker,” said Ajay Srivastava, Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).
Experts caution that Indian officials should resist last-minute US demands without thorough inter-ministerial consultation. India must also guard against a trade pact that heightens its reliance on the US market or aligns it too closely with Washington’s push to isolate China from global value chains.
While India-US BTA can bring respite to several exporters, particularly affected by tariff, Srivastava cautions that “India must not trade away its energy or policy autonomy for short-term gains. Strategic independence, not market access at any cost, should remain New Delhi’s guiding principle.” Experts fear that often the less powerful parties are known to abandon many of their long-held red lines and thus, India needs to exercise extreme caution. And thus, the government must make an objective assessment of how it would modify India’s rights and obligations vis-à-vis the US as they existed on the day when Modi and
Trump announced the launch of negotiations. “India needs to exercise extreme caution on this score, especially on issues related to digital economy. In particular, India must guard against
innocuous-looking non-discriminatory provisions that would compromise its long-term interest in the digital sector,” added Das. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal asserted that the the first stage of the agreement is expected to be completed by November 2025, however, he said , “No agreement can be made until we take care of the interests of India's farmers, fishermen and MSME sector.”
