Eyeing complementary allies, says Jaishankar

The new US tariff regime has prompted India to seek more complementary partners in the West and to look for more opportunities by concluding trade deals with the US, the UK and the European Union (EU), external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Friday.

- Rezaul H Laskar

NEW DELHI:

The tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump have focused India's attention on correcting "a certain skewed nature of our openness to the global economy" and seeking complementary partners, who are the open market economies in the West, Jaishankar said at the Global Technology Summit, the flagship dialogue on geo-technology that is co-hosted by the external affairs ministry.

"We have today an opportunity to take the current situation and if we can focus on these three big negotiations we have underway — with the US, the EU and the UK — if these really work out for us in this year, we would be in a very different position," Jaishankar said.