USTR will meet commerce minister on 23rd June
New Delhi, 15 June
US trade representative Jamieson Greer will meet commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal during his visit to In dia on June 23-24 to discuss issues related to the interim trade agreement, commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal said on Monday.
He said the expectation is that discussions will be centred around giving final touches to the interim framework deal and the larger bilateral trade agreement (BTA).
“Our expectation is that discussions will be centred around giving final touches to the framework deal, which has been discussed during the visit of their (US) delegation… and also on the larger BTA that has also been under discussions between the two sides,” he said.
Greer is expected to land in Delhi on June 22.
On June 2-4, an American team headed by its chief negotiator Brendan Lynch held discussions with Indian officials on finalisation of the deal.
On June 5, Goyal said that the two sides were moving towards closing all open ends of the interim trade agreement and that they were likely to execute the “very, very vibrant” first phase of the BTA by the middle of next month.
At the chief negotiators’ level, India and the US held discussions on a wide range of issues, covering trade in goods, non-tariff measures, customs and trade facilitation, economic security alignment and other areas of mutual interest.
Officials have said that it is important that India gets an advantage over its competitor nations on tariffs in the trade pact.
The talks will take place in the wake of the US trade representative proposing an additional 12.5% duty on 54 countries, including India, over alleged failure to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labour in third countries. It has proposed new tariffs on most Indian goods under Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974, concerning forced labour, and is conducting another probe into excess industrial capacity.
India had been preparing for the possibility that the US would use Section 301 as a basis for imposing additional tariffs, officials have said.
Agrawal said that the two sides are engaged on the Section 301 probes and the trade deal will cover the entire gamut of issues.
“These are legal probes…We have made our submissions last month and are engaged for further proceedings. We will have clear answers on 301,” he said.
The key focus of the negotiations will be getting relief on Section 301 probes and India having to pay lower tariffs than competitors. The deal could be firmed up if “we get the terms fair, equitable, and balanced”, one of the officials said earlier.
As the US Supreme Court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, the US administration now has the option of using the Section 301 investigation mechanism to impose new tariffs.
People familiar with the matter earlier said that the US could use this mechanism as a pressure tactic to bring its trading partners on the table to negotiate trade deals.
India and the US had issued a joint statement on February 7, agreeing on a framework for an interim agreement on reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade. The framework reaffirmed their commitment to broader India-US BTA negotiations.
Under the framework, the US removed a 25% penal tariff imposed on India for buying Russian oil and agreed to cut reciprocal tariffs to 18% from 25%.
However, before the deal was signed, the US Supreme Court on February 20 struck down tariffs imposed by President Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. On February 24, the US imposed a temporary 10% blanket tariff on all countries for 150 days under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. This ends on July 24.
The February joint statement on the framework had a clause that allowed the US and India to modify commitments in the event of any changes to agreed tariffs of either country.
When the framework was agreed, India had a comparative advantage over its competitors such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Now, with all US trading partners facing a uniform 10% tariff, the pact requires recalibration, officials said.
