India, US move to bury six WTO disputes, Delhi weighing joining trade pillar of IPEF

India has agreed to remove the retaliatory tariffs on certain products including chickpeas, lentils, almonds, walnuts, apples, boric acid and diagnostic reagents.

- NIVEDITA MUKHERJEE

When the US Trade Representative (USTR), adviser to the President of the United States–on trade issues and leading international trade negotiations– takes up discussions late into the night on high priority with the Indian Commerce Minister for building an expansive relationship of bilateral trade, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the world’s largest democracy and one of the fastest growing economies has truly taken its place on the high table of global trade negotiations. This is just a microcosm of the calibration witnessed in Washington between Prime Minister Modi and US President Joe Biden that shows up in a historic resolution of six outstanding WTO disputes between US and India through mutually agreed solutions as jointly communicated by Modi and Biden, and follows active discussions by India and the US during the last two years to terminate six outstanding disputes at the WTO.

These disputes filed by India and the US over a decade, represent certain key sectors of the economy such as steel, aluminium, renewable energy, solar products and certain key export-related measures. The unprecedented move in WTO history is premised on–as Modi pointed out–trade continuing to assume importance between the two nations. “Trade between our two countries are actually complementary. There are things that you have and there are things that we have and then we in fact complement each other. I find that in the area of trade during this decade, that is also going to be tremendously important,” Modi said at the joint address with Biden. The India-US trade and investment partnership is an engine for global growth with bilateral trade exceeding USD 191 billion in 2022, nearly doubling from 2014.