A team of negotiators from the U.S. will visit India on December 10-12 to take forward talks on the first tranche, dealing with tariffs, of a Bilateral Trade Agreement between the two countries.
According to sources in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), the U.S. delegation is expected to be led by Deputy US Trade Representative Rick Switzer, while the Indian side will be represented by Darpan Jain, joint secretary in MoCI.
The talks are not expected to constitute an official round of negotiations, the last of which took place in the U.S. in October. However, the two sides are looking forward to making “strong progress” towards addressing the issue of tariffs.
The U.S. currently has imposed a total of 50% tariffs on imports from India, with 25% of these constituting reciprocal tariffs, and another 25% being imposed as a penalty for India’s imports of Russian oil.
Last month, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal, who was India’s chief negotiator on the U.S. trade deal until he took over as Commerce Secretary in October, said that he was hopeful that the first tranche of the BTA, dealing with tariffs, would be concluded soon.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has also voiced similar sentiments about the deal.
It has also been reliably learnt from officials closely tracking the deal negotiations that India has presented the U.S. with a revised version of what it considers its “final concessions” on the wider issues of market access and sectoral benefits.
“The officials and negotiators have done what they can on that front,” a second official said. “Now it really is up to the leaders, and that too, one more than the other.”
There are also indications that the U.S. delegation to India might be accompanied by a “more senior” American government official.