India ‘tough nut to crack’, says USTR Greer as negotiators conclude trade talks
Three-day negotiations came to an end on Wednesday
As the delegation from New Delhi concluded talks on the bilateral trade agreement with Washington, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that India was a “tough nut to crack” in Washington.
The US team, led by Assistant USTR for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch, met with the 12-member delegation, headed by Darpan Jain, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce, to discuss the specifics of the trade agreement.
On Wednesday, the three-day negotiations came to an end.
“India is a tough nut to crack... they’ve protected their agricultural markets for a very long time,” Greer told the Committee on Ways and Means of the US Congress.
“As part of this deal, they want to protect a lot of that. There are things, though, where I think we can find mutual agreement. DDGs (distillers dried grains) is a good example of this,” he added.
Greer was answering questions from senators regarding the exports of DDGs, which are used to manufacture ethanol, soybean meal, and high-protein animal feed.
According to the USTR, the US negotiators were talking with their Indian counterparts on certain topics like the DDGs.
“Indian trade negotiators are in town this week. So we’ve been talking this week about these issues, including these specific commodities you talked about, DDGs,” Greer said.
On February 2, India and the US displayed the framework of their bilateral trade agreement; on February 7, the deal’s text was made public.
As part of the deal, India asks for preferential access to US markets as the two nations aim to reach USD 500 billion in bilateral commerce by 2030.
Under the earlier framework, the US had proposed reducing tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent from 50 per cent, while India had offered tariff concessions across industrial goods and a wide range of agricultural products.
However, Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which were enforced under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), were overturned by the US Supreme Court on February 20.
In order to ensure that its interests are safeguarded under the new international tariff framework, India is making an effort to recalibrate and redraft the agreement following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
