Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will visit the US next week to further talks on the Bilateral trade Agreement (BTA) and even explore the possibility of an interim trade deal before the comprehensive agreement is reached. During the minister’s stay in the US, a team of officials will also be in Washington and chief negotiators will be holding talks parallelly.
The minister will be leaving for Washington later this week and will hold meetings from May 17 to May 20. The delegation of Indian officials led by chief negotiator and special secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal will be engaging with the team from the US side from May 19 to May 22. Goyal will be meeting the political leadership dealing with trade.
While the officials maintain the full first phase of the BTA will be completed only by September-October, work is on so see if an interim agreement can be reached between the two sides.
The Minister has meetings lined up with US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. While both sides engage in hectic negotiations on the BTA and even an interim agreement, India has gone ahead and informed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that it reserves the right to retaliate additional duties on steel and aluminium imposed by the US under a national security law.
The officials here said that the steel and aluminium tariff issue can also be tackled as part of the BTA negotiations. The US has also indicated that it is willing to settle the matter with India in direct talks rather than through the WTO’s dispute settlement system when India approached the global trade regulating body with a complaint against the tariffs and seeking consultations with the US.
At the official level main issues regarding the BTA that will figure in the talks would include the issue of market access, rules of origin and non-tariff barriers.
Through the interim agreement India is seeking to beat the deadline for imposition of reciprocal tariffs which were imposed from April 9 and then were kept in abeyance for 90 days. This suspension led to additional duties on India to be capped at 10%. The 90-day deadline expires on July 8.
India and the US are engaging in physical meetings almost every month since the BTA was announced. In the meantime experts continue to be in touch with each other virtually.
The BTA was announced after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump on February 13, the very day that the US unveiled its reciprocal tariff plan. Through the BTA and related measures both countries are aiming to increase their bilateral trade to $ 500 billion by 2030 from $ 200 billion at present. The Terms of Reference (ToR) of the BTA were finalised in March.
Indian exporters also want the BTA to be expedited so that their shipments can continue to go to the US without any tariff major disadvantage after the 90-day pause expires.