India and the United States are still working through trade negotiations, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, as a February framework ties wider U.S. tariff relief to completion of an interim pact.
At the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi on Thursday, Oct. 22, Jaishankar said the negotiating teams were addressing unresolved points but declined to identify them. “It’s never done till it’s done,” he said.
Two days earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the discussions as “very, very close” during remarks in Mumbai, saying only a handful of points remained. He said he hoped for news soon but offered no date for an agreement.
A Feb. 7 joint statement established the framework for an interim trade agreement. It sets an 18% U.S. reciprocal tariff on specified Indian goods, while broader relief from those duties depends on completion of the interim pact. The statement also describes Indian tariff cuts on U.S. industrial products and a range of food and agricultural imports.
The governments also agreed to keep negotiating a broader bilateral trade agreement, including market access and supply chains. The February statement sets tariff terms for the interim pact but gives no date for completing it.
On Oct. 15, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said the first tranche had been finalized, while also saying further shaping and legal drafting were underway. He said he hoped to finalize it soon and put it into operation once India secured terms matching or surpassing those available to peer countries.
Jaishankar did not detail the outstanding issues, and Rubio did not identify the points he said remained. Neither gave a signing date. Goyal’s remarks also described continued work on the tranche even as he called it finalized.
