Resetting trade

Govt should inform how trade negotiations with US are going

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Recent statements on economic and trade relations between the United States (US) and India by senior American officials may provide some insight into what is being planned for the supposed "trade deal" that the two countries have promised to negotiate. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the US in February, he agreed with US President Donald Trump that the first tranches of a multisectoral trade agreement would be negotiated by the fall of this year. However, intervention over the past week from both the US President and his commerce secretary underlines the difficulties involved. Mr Trump reiterated his concern that Indian tariffs were so prohibitively high that "you can't even sell anything into India". He added that India had agreed "to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody's finally exposing them for what they've done". Whether or not this is the case, it indicates that New Delhi's efforts to claim that its trade-weighted average tariffs are quite low