India-US Trade Deal: No agreement on zero tariff barriers, says former US official

Former US Assistant Secretary of Commerce Raymond Vickery said that India was not ready to put all its tariff barriers to zero, and it's represented in the joint statement.

Vickery, while talking to ANI on the India-US Interim Trade Agreement, said that there are elements which can help cement certain discontinuities which could have been otherwise detrimental.

He said, "There are elements here which, going forward, can help to bridge some of the discontinuities, which have been very harmful to the US-India relationship over the past year...It's good that something has been put forward in a joint statement...India has not agreed to reduce all of its tariff barriers to zero, which was represented," he said.

"It's great that India and the US seem to be working around this problem, which was created in the first place by President Trump...Now the tariffs are down to 18%. Well, that's still seven, eight times what they were before this started...There is a long way to go. India is doing a great job of not succumbing to the tweets or the social media pronouncements and taking a rational and logical approach to this so that this extremely important relationship between the U.S. and India can resume," he added.

The US and India announced that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade (Interim Agreement). Today's framework reaffirmed the countries' commitment to the broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, launched by US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, which will include additional market access commitments and support more resilient supply chains.

The Interim Agreement between the United States and India will represent a historic milestone in our countries' partnership, demonstrating a common commitment to reciprocal and balanced trade based on mutual interests and concrete outcomes, as stated in the joint statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from ANI)