US-India trade deal on track and will be unveiled soon, says Piyush Goyal

The Print
October 21, 2019
By Nayanima Basu

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal Monday said US and India could not announce a trade package during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last month because the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was busy in negotiations with Japan and China.

“We couldn’t do a (trade) deal because when I met USTR (Lighthizer) he was busy with Japanese and Chinese negotiations. So the trade package got a little delayed. We’ve almost resolved the broad contours of what we’re going to announce,” Goyal said here at an event organised by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF).


Goyal, who was talking about his last meeting with Lighthizer in New York during Modi’s visit there, said he does not see “any great difficulty in closing the gap” as far as announcing a limited trade package is concerned.

“We will hopefully come out with our first set of agreements soon … We both believe that India and US should look at a much larger engagement in the days ahead, possibly an announcement for a bilateral agreement, which will go beyond the mere tinkering we are doing at present,” Goyal said, hinting at a much-talked-about free trade agreement between the US and India.

Last month, during a bilateral meeting between the US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Modi, the American President stated that India and US will first discuss a small trade deal followed by a larger agreement.

“Trade negotiations are very complex. A lot of back and forth is going on. We had a little pause because all of us were busy in our areas,” Goyal said. “But it’s on track, everything is going smoothly. Ambassador Lighthizer is a wonderful guy with whom I have hit off a good personal relationship and I don’t see any issue there.”

He added that Lighthizer literally held his hands and helped him learn the complexities of a trade negotiation.

The commerce minister further said that the limited trade deal will mostly look into “leveraging on each other’s strengths, especially when you see the comparative advantages that India has to offer in terms of skilled manpower, in terms of our technical expertise in different areas, our young engineers and leveraging this American corporation leverage their innovation”.

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