Delegates of the US negotiating team, led by its chief negotiator Brendan Lynch, will be visiting New Delhi next month from June 1 -4 to have another round of in-person meeting with the Indian delegates to finalise details of a proposed interim trade agreement and advance talks on a broader Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).
“It is proposed to finalize the details of the Interim Agreement and take forward the negotiations under the broader BTA on multiple areas such as Market Access, Non-Tariff Measures, Customs and Trade Facilitation, Investment Promotion, Economic Security Alignment,” mentioned the Commerce Ministry in its statement issued.
This will be the second in-person meeting between the two sides since India and the US issued a joint statement on February 7 agreeing on a framework for an interim reciprocal trade agreement. India’s chief negotiator Darpan Jain additional secretary in the commerce department had the previous in-person meeting in Washington DC in April under the proposed framework.
India and the US have set a target of $500 billion imports in five years under the proposed BTA with an aim to reduce India’s trade surplus with the US.
The discussions had faced several headwinds after the US Supreme Court declared the tariff imposed by the Trump administration illegal and thereafter US started separate investigations against India under Section 301. The interim agreement is expected to address immediate trade concerns including several non-tariff barriers and create a pathway for a comprehensive trade pact. While both the sides hinted at concluding the BTA at the earliest, India’s Commerce Ministry had previously hinted that that a deal will only be signed once details are clear on the tariffs the US would be levying on India’s competitors and also the ongoing investigations under Section 301 are over. As of now, US imposed a blanket tariff of 10% on all its trading partners.
US Ambassador Sergio Gor during his four-day trip to India this week has affirmed that the United States is optimistic about concluding the proposed bilateral trade agreement with India in the coming months.
