Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal will kick off his US visit with a series of meetings with senior American political leaders involved in trade-related matters. Detail negotiations for the proposed Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) are expected to begin in the coming days.
The development assumes significance in the wake of the US President Donald Trump’s statement in Doha on Thursday that India is “willing to literally charge us no tariffs” on US goods under the BTA. External affairs minister S Jaishankar later said the talks are only going on, adding that complicated and intricate negotiations are involved.
“Nothing is decided till everything is,” he said, adding that India was looking for a trade deal that is “mutually beneficial” to both countries. “(The trade deal) has to work for both countries. That would be our expectation. Until that is done, any judgment on it would be premature,” he asserted.
According to sources, Goyal, who is already in the US, will first meet US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and then US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer to also take stock of the progress made by negotiators after the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the agreement were agreed to in March.
This will be the second visit of Goyal after both India and the US agreed to negotiate the BTA in February when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump met. His first visit to the US happened in early March, before formal negotiations on BTA began. Then, too, the minister had held meetings with both Lutnick and Greer.
During the meetings of Goyal with Lutnick and Greer, both sides will also take stock of the progress in negotiations so far, identify any irritants that might be coming in the way of progress on the trade deal and remove them.
While both sides are working with a deadline of autumn of this year to wrap discussions on the BTA, an interim deal is also being explored to avoid the full force of reciprocal tariffs that will come into effect from July 8 after a 90-day pause.
While the meeting of the minister will last from May 17 to May 20, negotiators will be holding their meetings for four days from May 19 to May 22. The officials from both sides will be engaging on the issues around market access, rules of origin and non-tariff barriers.
India’s notice to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) reserving its right to impose retaliatory duty on certain US products over American tariffs on steel and aluminium would also figure in the BTA negotiations.
A team of Indian officials, led by chief negotiator and special secretary in the department of commerce Rajesh Agrawal, was in Washington last month to give impetus to talks. Agrawal had three days of meetings with Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia, Brendan Lynch, during the first visit.
The BTA is the most important trade agreement that India is negotiating, as the US remains its largest trading partner and market. Early this month, the FTA with the UK was concluded and similar deals with the European Union (EU), Oman, Australia, and may others are in the final stages.