Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said India and US are committed to increasing bilateral trade to $500 billion and the two countries are negotiating a ‘strong’ trade agreement within the next 6-8 months. “…In the next 6-8 months, by establishing a strong trade agreement, we are committed to increasing trade to $500 billion,” PTI reported the minister saying on the sidelines of CII’s India-Qatar Business Forum meet.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Donald Trump the previous week, wherein the two countries announced to more than double the two-way commerce to $500 billion by 2030 and negotiate the first tranche of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector bilateral trade agreement (BTA) by fall of 2025.
This comes in the backdrop of Donald Trump’s announcement of imposition of reciprocal tariff on trade partner countries to address “longstanding imbalances”. Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report maintained that India and the US have agreed to cut tariffs on certain goods as part of the proposed mutually-beneficial trade deal between them. Further, top officials in India have said that the country will continue to cut import taxes as the government looks to work around US President Donald Trump’s plan to impose reciprocal tariffs on trading partners.
Further, at another event, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said, “We are building to be an investor-friendly country, and as a result, the duty cuts and the rationalization that have been announced is a continuing process and we shall keep doing that.”
Per the PTI report, Piyush Goyal maintained that once his US counterpart takes charge, both countries will discuss the contours of the pact. When asked if the pact would have chapters related to goods, services and investments, he said, “My counterpart has not yet confirmed in the US…After the (confirmation), we will do talks and then only we can decide the way forward.”
India and the US had discussed a mini-trade deal during the first term of Donald Trump, but it was shelved by the Joe Biden administration.
The US and India bilateral trade in goods and services stood at $190.08 billion ($123.89 billion in goods and $66.19 billion in services trade) during 2023. During the year, India’s merchandise exports to the US stood at $83.77 billion, while imports stood at $40.12 billion, leaving a trade gap of $43.65 billion in favour of India.
During 2021-24, the US was the largest trading partner of India and is one of the few countries with which India has a trade surplus.