The India-US Sideshow

It's advantage Trump on market access for agriculture, but for non-agri products progress in bilateral negotiations won't be easy

- ANWARUL HODA

ALTHOUGH THE ONGOING India-US negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) were set off by the joint statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump on February 13, the talks are not of India's seeking. India was pushed into the talks by the US President's high-decibel criticism of its tariff levels. With Trump launching the mega-show on reciprocal tariffs on April 2, the bilateral talks slid into the position of a sideshow.

The dialogue is now well on course and the first meeting of high officials has already been held at New Delhi between March 26 and 29. According to reports, the talks have moved on and the parties are now engaged in sectoral expert-level virtual talks. The India-US Joint Statement dated February 13 sketched out the broad agenda of increasing market access for both sides. There is specific mention of the objective to increase US exports of industrial goods and Indian exports of labour-intensive goods. There is an indication that both sides will try to increase trade in agriculture as well. What is surprising is that the initiation of the bilateral trade talks was accompanied with rather unfriendly comments on India being the "tariff king." Is the objective to demoralize India at the outset and drive the negotiations towards one-sided results with bluff and bluster? To prevent the talks from becoming lopsided, India must insist on some guardrails to protect its interests.