India-US Bilateral Trade Agreement Is Nearing Closure

New Delhi: The government on Monday said that the much-awaited first phase of the proposed India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) is ‘nearing closure’ and would address the hefty 50 per cent tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Indian goods, in addition to resolving America’s market access issues, according to an official. “We are engaged with the US on the BTA. It has two parts. One part of negotiations will take time. The other part is a package, which can address reciprocal tariffs. We are working on both aspects. The package that can address reciprocal tariffs is more or less near closure and we should get it soon,” the official said. The US has imposed a hefty 50 per cent import tariff — 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs and another 25 per cent on Indian goods entering American markets for buying Russian crude oil. “However, the deal is expected to address the issue of 25 per cent penalty on India, otherwise the agreement would have no meaning,” the official said, adding that the BTA has multiple packages or tranche and this will be the first tranche to address the tariffs. It is expected that the deal will be announced on a mutually agreed date for both countries. On the issue of India’s state-run oil companies signing a one-year deal to import cooking gas LPG from the US in 2026, the official said that it was something in the works for a long time. “This is in the overall context of keeping trade with the US. It is not part of any negotiations package per se but definitely as part of our endeavour to balance trade with the US,” he said India and the US have been negotiating a bilateral trade agreement for a long time and both the countries want to conclude it soon. President Trump has recently stated that the US is ‘pretty close’ to reaching a ‘fair trade deal’ with India, adding that he would lower tariffs imposed on Indian goods at ‘some point’. So far, six rounds of talks have been completed. Both sides have announced plans to finalise the first tranche of the deal by fall of 2025. A team of Indian officials, headed by commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal, was in Washington last month to hold trade talks with their US counterparts. The three-day talks ended on October 17.



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