Says to be operationalised once we get competitive advantage
NEW DELHI, OCT 15 (PTI): Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said the first phase of the India-US trade pact has been finalised and is undergoing legal drafting.
He expressed the hope that the legal drafting too would be finalised soon and operationalised once India secures a competitive advantage over its peer countries.
“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,” Goyal said here at the SRCC Centenary Conclave.
The minister added that his comments on the US-India pact “are consistent and exactly what I’ve said yesterday and what I said a week ago and what I said three months ago. So nothing new in that”.
He also said that the free trade agreement between India and the European Union will be inked in December and would come into force from February or March next year.
Later, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said that the negotiations on the US trade pact are moving in the right direction.
“Probably we are in a very good zone. We anticipate closing the deal and signing the deal at the earliest possible time,” he told reporters here.
Agarwal added that the trade deal has to be signed when the overall tariff structure would be formalised in the US.
“So there is a parallel work being done in the US also to get back the tariff structure and based on some of the outcomes under (Section) 301, we will progress towards signing the deal at a mutually agreed time,” he said.
Regarding the legal drafting of the pact, Agarwal said it is going on.
“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 each other’s market. So in that context, India has to get a 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.
On whether the framework will take into account the US Trade Representative’s Section 301 investigations on concerns related to excess capacity, he said: “I think all other issues will get settled as part of the deal”.
Earlier this month, India and 14 other countries called for coordinated global action to curb excess industrial production that distorts markets, hurts domestic industries and contributes to an imbalance between supply and demand.
On this, the secretary said: “Excess capacity due to non-market forces or non-market interventions has been something which India has also been opposing in a big way”.
He added that excess capacity being created as a result of non-market policies is detrimental to global trade.
When asked if the US’ Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which authorises US President Donald Trump to impose tariffs up to 100 per cent on largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, will also be part of the new tariff framework, he said “hopefully when it (pact) is signed, hopefully we will have more clarification on that. But definitely India will look at more tariff stability and trade stability as a part of the deal”.
Earlier this month, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the US and India were working to finalise a bilateral trade deal but an agreement was not imminent.
“At the same time, there’s no – I don’t think there’s something imminent – but we truly have identified the universe of items that are sticking points. We’re working diligently towards them,” Greer said.
On this, the secretary said those “universe” of issues have reduced over time.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to India next week.
The framework for the first tranche was announced in February, but changes in tariff landscape in the US have led to further negotiations.
India is seeking better tariffs than its competitors for its goods in the US market.
On October 5, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said negotiations on the India-US trade agreement are still underway, but both sides appeared to have reached a “plateau”, with limited room for further concessions.
India’s outbound shipments to the US grew marginally by 0.92 per cent to USD 87.3 billion during the last fiscal year despite high tariffs, while imports increased 15.95 per cent to USD 52.9 billion. The trade surplus declined to USD 34.4 billion in 2025-26 from USD 40.89 billion in 2024-25.
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