Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said the first tranche of the India-US bilateral trade agreement had been finalised and was undergoing legal drafting, expressing hope that the process would be completed soon.
He said the agreement could be operationalised once India secured a comparable or competitive advantage over its peer countries.
"US bilateral trade agreement's first tranche has been finalised and it is going through final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalise that soon and operationalise that once we get the comparable advantage or competitive advantage over our peer countries," Goyal said at the SRCC Centenary Conclave in New Delhi.
Goyal said his latest remarks on the agreement were consistent with his previous statements.
"My comments on the US-India pact are consistent and exactly what I've said yesterday and what I said a week ago and what I said three months ago. So nothing new in that," he said.
Also on Thursday US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said the “big items are done” in the negotiations and expressed confidence that both sides would finalise the pact. Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, Gor described the negotiations as moving at an “incredible pace” and said the two sides were “very close to landing it”.
Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said negotiations were progressing in the right direction and expressed hope that the agreement would be concluded and signed at the earliest.
"Probably we are in a very good zone. We anticipate closing the deal and signing the deal at the earliest possible time," Agrawal told reporters in New Delhi.
He said the signing would depend partly on the US formalising its overall tariff structure.
"So there is a parallel work being done in the US also to get back the tariff structure and based on some of the outcomes under (Section) 301, we will progress towards signing the deal at a mutually agreed time," he said.
Agrawal said legal drafting was underway, but stressed that India was seeking preferential market access for its goods compared with those of competing countries.
"The idea is when you do a trade deal, the trade deal has also a very important component that it gives you not only market access in each other's market, it gives you preferential market access in each other's market. So in that context, India has to get a preferential market access with their competitors. And that is something which will come as a part of the new tariff framework that the US is working on," the commerce secretary said.
Asked whether the framework would take into account the US Trade Representative's Section 301 investigations into concerns related to excess capacity, Agrawal said, "I think all other issues will get settled as part of the deal".
Earlier this month, India and 14 other countries called for coordinated global action to curb excess industrial production that distorts markets, hurts domestic industries and contributes to an imbalance between supply and demand.
On the issue, Agrawal said, "Excess capacity due to non-market forces or non-market interventions has been something which India has also been opposing in a big way".
He added that excess capacity created through non-market policies was detrimental to global trade.
Asked whether the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which authorises US President Donald Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on major buyers of Russian oil and gas, would be part of the new tariff framework, Agrawal said India expected greater clarity when the agreement was signed.
"Hopefully when it (pact) is signed, hopefully we will have more clarification on that. But definitely India will look at more tariff stability and trade stability as a part of the deal," he said.
Goyal also said the free trade agreement between India and the European Union would be signed in December and come into force in February or March next year.
Earlier this month, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Washington and New Delhi were working to finalise a bilateral trade agreement but that a deal was not imminent.
"At the same time, there's no – I don't think there's something imminent – but we truly have identified the universe of items that are sticking points. We're working diligently towards them," Greer said.
Agrawal said the range of outstanding issues had narrowed over time.
The framework for the first tranche of the India-US trade agreement was announced in February, but changes in the US tariff landscape led to further negotiations. India is seeking more favourable tariffs for its goods in the US market.
On October 5, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said negotiations on the India-US trade agreement were still underway, but both sides appeared to have reached a "plateau", with limited room for further concessions.
India's outbound shipments to the US grew marginally by 0.92 per cent to USD 87.3 billion in 2025-26 despite high tariffs, while imports rose 15.95 per cent to USD 52.9 billion. India's trade surplus with the US declined to USD 34.4 billion in 2025-26 from USD 40.89 billion in 2024-25.
(With inputs from PTI)
