A Bilateral Game Changer

India signed a historic trade deal on Thursday amid worldwide economic chaos and uncertainty triggered by US President Donald Trump's tariff wars.

- RAKESH MOHAN JOSHI

With the signing of the India-UK deal, India demonstrated its outstanding capability to negotiate complex issues with conflicting interests and arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement aimed at doubling bilateral trade from $55 billion to $120 billion by 2030.

The team of Indian negotiators, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal, and Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Keir Starmer deserve credit for navigating through a tough terrain of negotiations.

Trade negotiations between the two nations officially commenced in January 2022 but missed several deadlines mainly due to political turmoil in the UK and a difficulty to find consensus on a variety of contentious issues with conflicting interests. These included movement of people and visa regulations, services trade, patent laws, climate change, data localization, and non-tariff trade barriers. However, Trump's "Liberation Day" reciprocal tariff announcement created global uncertainty by challenging established doctrines and the multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization, disrupting trade patterns and supply chains. It compelled countries to swiftly find alternative trade partners and reinvent value chains to protect trade and economic growth in an unpredictable economic environment. This has also been a critical factor for negotiators on both sides to conclude the deal on May 6.

Formally known as the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), it is likely to be the most comprehensive trade deal ever signed by India, covering a variety of issues like goods and services trade, digital trade, investments, bilateral government procurements, strengthening intellectual property rights (IPR) protections, government-to-government dispute settlement mechanism, and non-trade issues such as anti-corruption, labour rights, environment standards, etc.