A team of officials from the US would be in India for three days next week starting December 10 to push ahead the negotiations on an initial trade deal that will see significant reduction in additional tariffs imposed on Indian imports by the Donald Trump administration.
The deal will be in the nature of an initial pact which will then be a launchpad for a more comprehensive Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).
The team will be led by Deputy US Trade Representative Rick Switzer, while the Indian team will be led by Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal. Earlier the US teams in trade talks with India were led by Assistant USTR Brendan Lynch who is Assistant USTR for South and Central Asia.
The US team will be in India from December 10 to December 12 and the meetings that are being planned have not been labelled as a formal round. Switzer serves as the lead of the US negotiating team for the India-US BTA while Lynch is the chief negotiator. In US political hierarchy, Switzer has a higher rank.
Sticking Point
The US currently charges 50% additional duties on Indian goods—25% reciprocal tariff to address the trade deficit and another 25% for buying Russian oil.
These tariffs have led to sharp decline in the Indian shipments to the US of traditional goods like clothing, marine products, engineering goods and leather. Overall merchandise exports to the US fell 8.59% on-year to $6.30 billion.
Negotiations at the Finish Line
Earlier, Indian officials have said negotiations have covered significant ground and talks are at final stages to address the additional tariff burden India faces.
“At the level of negotiators I think we are in a zone from where we can say it is something we can achieve in a very short time. There is not much left to negotiate. There are very few issues remaining,” Agrawal had said.
It was the BTA that India and US had agreed to enter into on February 13 till 25% reciprocal tariffs and then another 25% penal tariffs on India for buying Russian oil were announced. The initial deadline for the first tranche of the BTA was fall of 2025. The extra tariffs focused talks to addressing the additional tariffs, away from a comprehensive trade agreement.
The last round of physical meetings for a trade deal between the two sides were held in October. It was the sixth round of talks between the two sides. The first one in March had finalised the terms of reference (ToR) of the BTA. Now both sides are engaged virtually with talks happening almost every week on some or the other issue of the agreement.