US reveals how close India is to sealing major trade deal, points to last hurdle

India and the US are “very, very close” to signing the proposed bilateral trade deal and only need to overcome “that last hurdle”, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the SelectUSA Investment Summit at National Harbour in Maryland, Landau said the two countries had been negotiating for months and it was important to “reach some closure” and move on with the many other issues on the agenda.

“We are very aware of India's importance on the world stage. I think it is very important to get a final resolution of that trade deal. We have been talking now for months that we are very close, and I think we are very close. But we have to get over that last hurdle,” Landau said.

“I don't have any huge inside information to provide on when that is coming, but I can just reiterate that I believe that we are very, very close,” said Landau, who recently visited India.

“I think ultimately it's important that we reach some closure on that and we finally sign it and move on with the many other issues on our agenda,” he added.

Praising India’s economic prospects, Landau described the country as “one of the great powers of the world”.

“There’s no question that India is one of the great powers of the world. India now has the greatest population in the world. India has incredible economic potential, I think India is now poised to have massive economic development and to lift many hundreds of millions of people out of poverty,” he said.

India and the United States held three-day talks in Washington last month on the proposed first phase of the bilateral trade agreement (BTA).

The Indian delegation, led by Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Darpan Jain, held discussions with a US team headed by Brendan Lynch, Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia.

India and the US had announced the framework of the BTA on February 2 and released the text of the deal on February 7.

Under the original framework, the US had agreed to reduce tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 50% and remove an additional 25% tariff linked to India’s purchase of Russian oil.

However, officials said the proposed agreement required recalibration after the US Supreme Court on February 20 ruled against President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Following the ruling, the Trump administration moved to a flat 10% tariff regime for all trading partners, prompting both sides to revisit parts of the proposed pact.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer recently acknowledged that agriculture remained one of the difficult areas in the negotiations.

“India is a tough nut to crack... they've protected their agricultural markets for a very long time,” Greer told the Committee on Ways and Means of the US Congress.

“As part of this deal, they want to protect a lot of that. There are things, though, where I think we can find mutual agreement. DDGs (distillers dried grains) is a good example of this,” he said.

Distillers dried grains, a byproduct of ethanol production used as high-protein animal feed, are among the items under discussion along with soybean meal and ethanol.