US trade deal finalised, legal drafting on: Piyush Goyal

We hope to be able to finalise the deal soon and operationalise it once we get an advantage over our peer nations, said Goyal

NEW DELHI: Seeking to end uncertainty over the trade deal with the US, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal Thursday said the agreement has been finalised and is undergoing legal drafting. “US bilateral trade agreement’s first tranche has been finalised and it is going through final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalise that soon and operationalise that once we get the comparable advantage or competitive advantage over our peer countries,” he said at an event. The minister later told reporters that his comments on the US-India pact are “consistent” throughout. “What I’ve said yesterday is exactly what I said a week ago and what I said three months ago. So, nothing new in that.” At the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said Thursday negotiations for the bilateral trade deal were moving at an “incredible pace”, and the “big items are done”, underlining that he was confident that both sides will get the pact through. “I won’t like to get into too many details at this stage, and let the ministers announce that. But in the grand scheme of things, big items are done,” he said. He also said that US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer and Goyal are literally discussing the proposed deal down to smaller details. The comments come days after US Trade Representative Jaimeson Greer said that the trade deal was not imminent. Days later, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that both sides appeared to have reached a “plateau”, with limited room for further concessions. On Wednesday, external affairs minister S Jaishankar had said that India and the US are heading towards a landing point on the trade deal. Talks have been going on since the US Supreme Court dismissed the reciprocal tariffs imposed by American President Donald Trump, invoking emergency powers, which led the suspension of the earlier agreement that had been thrashed out. A deal can now be finalised only after USTR unveils its next set of steps after having imposed 10-12.5% tariff under section 301 on over 50 countries, citing their failure to check the import of goods using forced labour. A second probe on structural excess capacity is pending, while a new law also empowers the US president to levy up to 100% tariff on countries importing oil from Russia and Iran. Asked about the impact of the two pending moves on the talks, commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal “all other issues will get settled as part of the deal”, while insisting that India should retain an edge over rivals, which includes Asean nations, China and Bangladesh. “The idea is when you do a trade deal, the trade deal has also a very important component that it gives you not only market access in each other’s market, it gives you preferential market access. In that context, India has to get preferential market access with their competitors. And that is something which will come as a part of the new tariff framework that the US is working on,” the secretary said.

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