Kolkata: There is finally a ray of hope on the much-discussed Indo-US trade agreement that has been passing through a lot of rough patches with an US team
visiting India from June 1-4 to discuss finalisation of the details for the interim trade pact. The team will also push negotiations under the broader bilateral trade agreement, the commerce ministry has said. “To carry forward the discussions, the US team led by the Chief Negotiator will be visiting India from 1-4th June 2026,” the ministry said in a statement. The two teams are “proposed to finalise the details of the interim agreement and take forward the negotiations under the broader BTA on multiple areas such as market access, non-tariff measures, customs and trade facilitation, investment promotion, and economic security alignment,” the government added. The US Secretary of StateMarco Rubio was on a four-day visit to India last week.
India’s trade surplus delcined in FY26
US Ambassador Sergio Gor has said that in the coming months the long-awaited bilateral trade dela could be wrapped up. In FY26, the US was India’s second largest trading partner of India. IN the last financial year, India’s exports to the US grew 0.92% to $87.3 billion while imports surged 15.95% to reach $52.9 billion. India’s trade surplus dipped to $34.4 billion in FY26 from $40.89 billion in FY25. The Narendra Modi government has said that the Indo-US trade deal will bring great benefits to Indian exports.
US Supreme Court trashes Trump tariffs
The broad terms of the Indo-Us trade deal was finalised early this year but negotiations hit an air pocket when the US Supreme Court trashed the IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) tariffs of US president Donald Trump. This ruling came on February 20. Just a few days earlier, on February 7, New Delhi and Washington had come out with a joint statement settling the contours of the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement.
The framework said that the Trump administration will reduce tariffs on India from the 50% ruling then to 18%. Of the 50% tariffs — the highest against any country — the US would eliminate 25% tariffs on Indian goods for agreeing not to import Russian crude oil. Of the remaining 25%, Washington agreed to bring it down to 18%.
10% interim tariffs
Stung by the legal slap, Washington opted for imposition of 10% tariffs on all countries for 150 days, starting February 24. With the entire tariff game hitting the reset button, a scheduled meeting between the chief negotiators of the US and India was postponed. The decision to pick up the negotiations from where it was languishing was taken when the two sides met in Washington in April 20-23.
The trade investigation that Washington is now carrying against India along with more than a dozen countries including China has been another rough patch in the way of the bilateral trade pact. New Delhi has told Washington that all such doubts about unfair trade practices — government subsidies etc that allegedly make imports from Indian ‘artificially’ cheaper — should be discussed within the ambit of the bilateral pact and not as a separate investigation.
Probable relook at framework
With the tariff landscape changing, both sides may have to relook at the framework of the deal. India has proposed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods as well as a wide array of American food and agricultural products. Some of these are dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits. New Delhi has agreed to purchase US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products and coking coal worth $500 billion in the next five years.
