The US should sign a trade agreement with India if it feels that the offer made by the country in the negotiations is the best it has received from any other country, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.
Piyush Goyal Responds
He was responding to the comments made by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to the senate appropriations committee where he said that India has been “quite forward leaning”. “His (Greer’s) happiness is very much welcome. And, I do believe that if they are very happy, they should be signing on the dotted lines,” Goyal told reporters in Mumbai.
“The kind of offers that have been talking to us have been the best we have ever received as a country, so I think that is a viable alternative market (for agriculture products),” Greer told a Congressional committee earlier this week.
Negotiations Progress
Goyal however, declined to specify India’s offer to the US. The minister said there have been five rounds of negotiations with the US on the trade deal, and added that US Deputy Trade Representative Rick Switzer’s ongoing visit to India is not centred around negotiations.
“Negotiations are progressing well. We have had substantive discussions over several rounds of negotiations in the past. The current visit is not a negotiating round,” Goyal added.