US needs to respect India’s red lines for trade agreement: EAM Jaishankar

Amid strain in bilateral ties over Trump tariffs, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said any trade deal between India and the US has to respect New Delhi’s ‘red lines’.

The red lines, conveyed to US trade negotiators in the past, include not allowing US companies in the agriculture and dairy sectors, which are central to India's rural economy. The minister was speaking at a discussion on ‘Shaping Foreign Policy in Turbulent Times’ at an event here.

He said most of the issues currently affecting the India-US relations were linked to the inability to reach an understanding on the trade issue. Jaishankar said an understanding on it was necessary not because the US was the world's largest market, but because much of the world had reached those understandings.

On differences between India and the US, the minister said these should be seen in proportion as some aspects of the bilateral relationship were continuing "as usual”. He made the remarks while responding to questions from the moderator, former Revenue Secretary NK Singh, and members of the audience.

Referring to negotiations with the US, the minister said, "We have to see that our red lines are respected... In any agreement, there are things you can negotiate and there are things you can't. 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.”

“We have issues with the US. 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,” Jaishankar said.

US President Donald Trump has imposed a 25 per cent reciprocal tariff on India. "In addition, there is a second tariff, which we have publicly termed unfair.... This was imposed on us for sourcing energy from Russia,” he said, while talking about a 25 per cent punitive levy imposed by the US administration for India buying crude from Russia.

Talks on a trade deal resumed recently following a thaw in the relationship after a phone conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump.

On buying Russian oil, the minister noted that countries with a “far more antagonistic relationship" with Moscow were buying Russian energy, but they had not faced similar punitive levies from the US.

Jaishankar’s address at the event also focused on the strategic consequences of unprecedented changes on the global stage, including the leveraging of production, supply chains, trade, data and connectivity, and India’s approach towards coping with these shifts by developing a manufacturing network.