Trade deal with US has to respect India's ‘red lines’: Jaishankar

Any trade deal between India and the US has to respect New Delhi's "red lines" and efforts are under way to find a "landing ground", External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday amid strain in ties between the two countries over Washington's policy on tariff.

In an interactive session at an event, Jaishankar acknowledged having issues between India and the US and that many of them are linked to the inability to firm up the proposed trade deal.

The external affairs minister said an understanding on trade between the two sides is necessary as the US is the world's largest market but at the same time noted that India's red lines should be respected.

"We today have issues with the United States. A big part of it is the fact that we have not arrived at a landing ground for our trade discussions, and the inability so far to reach there has led to a certain tariff being levied on India," he said.

Jaishankar was speaking at the discussion on the theme 'Shaping Foreign Policy in Turbulent Times' at the Kautilya Economic Enclave.

"In addition, there is a second tariff which we have publicly said we regard as very unfair, which has picked on us for sourcing energy from Russia when there are other countries that have done so," he said.

The relations between New Delhi and Washington have been reeling under severe stress after Trump doubled tariffs on Indian goods to a whopping 50 per cent, including a 25 per cent additional duties for India's purchase of Russian crude oil.

India described the US action as "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable".

"Whatever happens at the end of the day, there has got to be a trade understanding with the US...because it is the world's largest market but also because much of the world has reached those understandings," Jaishankar said.

"But it has to be an understanding where our bottom lines, our red lines are respected. In any agreement, there are things you can negotiate and there are things you can't," he said.

Jaishankar said India is pretty clear about its approach.

"I think we are pretty clear about that. We have to find that landing ground and that's been the conversation which has been going on since March," he said.

India and the US have recently resumed negotiations for the proposed trade deal after a brief hiatus of a few weeks.

The external affairs minister also suggested that the strain in the relations has not been impacting every dimension of the engagement.

"There are problems, there are issues, nobody is in denial of it. Those issues need to be negotiated and discussed and resolved, which is exactly what we are trying to do," he said.

At the same time, he added: "I would really hesitate to read very much more into it than the issues themselves. I think I also want to say a large part of the relationship is actually continuing either as business as usual or in fact in some cases even doing more than it was doing before."