The US team, led by its chief negotiator for the trade agreement with India, will be in New Delhi from June 1 to 4 to finalise the details of the interim pact and advance negotiations for a broader Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). Assistant US Trade Representative Brendan Lynch will lead the US team.
The talks will focus on multiple areas such as market access, non-tariff measures, customs and trade facilitation, investment promotion, and economic security alignment, a statement by the Department of Commerce said.
“We have had many meaningful discussions. We have a framework agreement done with the Indians. I have a team going there next week,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in an interaction with the American think tank Council on Foreign Relations.
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“I expect to meet with my counterparts (Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal) soon as well. I would really like to be in a position to finalise our agreement with them as well on the basis of the joint framework we agreed to. It would be historic for the US and India,” he added.
The first physical meeting between the two sides to finalise the interim trade agreement, which is based on the framework agreed on February 8, was held from April 21-23 in Washington. Additional Secretary of Department of Commerce Darpan Jain will lead the Indian team.
Under the framework agreement, the US had agreed to reduce additional duties on India to 18% from 50% in return for greater market access in industrial and agricultural products. However, before the framework could be converted into a formal agreement, the US Supreme Court invalidated the country-specific reciprocal tariffs, which was the starting point of all trade deals that the US had imposed on its trade partners.
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After the US Supreme Court verdict, the US imposed 10% additional tariffs on all trade partners from February 24 under Section 122 of the Trade Act.These tariffs can only be imposed for 150 days and these are expected to expire on July 24.
Greer, when asked whether these 10% tariffs would be continued, said the law does not put any limitation on the extension but the focus of the office of US Trade Representative is on two probes that are ongoing under the Section 301 of the Trade Act — one on extra capacities and the other one on the use of forced labour.
The investigations aim to determine the extent of injury these measures are causing to American commerce and to pressure trade partners through tariffs to adopt policies that check the use of forced labour in production and reverse support or subsidies that enable the creation of excess capacities.
TOPICSbusiness newsECONOMYIndia-US trade dealThis article was first uploaded on May twenty-seven, twenty twenty-six, at nine minutes past nine in the night.