India and the US will work toward finalising the interim agreement on trade in the coming days, with a view to concluding a mutually beneficial Bilateral Trade Agreement, the White House has said. The historic deal – which Prime Minister Narendra Modi said would strengthen the Make in India initiative by opening new market opportunities for farmers, entrepreneurs, MSMEs, startup innovators, and fishermen – has now received praises from Pakistan.
Speaking to a news channel, Pakistani political commentator Najam Sethi said that New Delhi does not take “dictation” from anyone and believes in negotiation.
Sethi, who is a close aide of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, indicated that while India believes in a pragmatic style of negotiation while protecting its self-interest, Pakistan has a more emotional and “honour-bound” approach.
India played its cards well with President Trump
In the same interview, Sethi said that India did not budge under pressure from the Trump administration and ensured that it “gives concessions that are in its interests” while clinching the deal.
“India doesn’t take dictation [from anyone]. India negotiates. And it silently gives concessions that are in its interests … it’s not honour-bound. Our [Pakistan] politics is honour-bound … India doesn’t negotiate like that,” Sethi said.
Sethi acknowledged that India had made some trade concessions but rejected claims that these were against the interests of farmers.
“India has given some concessions, which are being criticised … But look, they were saying that India did not protect the farmers. What did they not protect? They protected the farmers and gave permission to the American exporters,” he said.
‘You can’t trust Donald Trump’
On the contrary, Sethi said, that the Sharif government did not benefit much from its “excessive flattery” of Trump.
“I’ve been saying from Day 1 that you can’t trust Donald Trump. And he may make certain demands that will be difficult for Pakistan to fulfil. And if such a situation arises, then Donald Trump will exert counter-pressure on you … such a situation may develop in the future,” he said.
Sethi added: “We’ve good ties with Trump admin right now but they can get strained owing to the evolving situation in the Middle East and India-US ties getting back on track.”
‘Historic India-US trade deal’ will open Indian markets to American products: White House
The White House, in a statement on Friday, highlighted that the ‘historic trade deal’ between India and the US will open up India’s market of over 1.4 billion people to American products.
Friday’s Joint Statement follows a call between President Trump and PM Modi last week, in which the leaders reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal trade and reaffirmed their commitment to broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations.
Under the deal, Trump agreed to remove the additional 25% tariff on imports from India in recognition of India’s commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil.
India agreed to lower or eliminate duties on a wide range of American industrial, agricultural and other products and expand market access. It also agreed to purchase $500 billion in US energy, aircraft parts, precious metals, technology (including GPUs) and coking coal over five years.
Notably, India exempted several sensitive agricultural sectors from tariff concessions in the trade deal, protecting them from increased US imports.