India, US to try to address trade concerns

India and the United States will next week make an attempt to address trade concerns and explore ways to expand economic relations, even as bilateral commerce this year indicated a strong rebound, raising hope for surpassing the 2019 pre-Covid-19 volume.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will host the US Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, in a meeting in New Delhi on Monday. “Both (Goyal and Tai) agreed to take a comprehensive look at ways to expand the bilateral trade relationship,” Judith Ravin, the American Consul General in Chennai, said, addressing the Bengaluru Tech Summit.

She was referring to what the Commerce Minister and the US Trade Representative had agreed on during a virtual meeting earlier this month.

Ravin noted that the growth in India-US economic ties had been extraordinary, with trade exploding from approximately $20 billion in 2001 to just over $145 billion in 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic had taken its toll on trade, but the US remained India’s biggest trading partner and largest export market. “The 2021 data indicates a strong rebound, and if it continues, we could be on track to exceed our 2019 numbers,” said the US Consul General, adding that the US companies continued to be “the biggest source of foreign direct investment, fuelling continued growth in India”.

She said commercial ties between the small and big technology firms in India and the US had supported the recovery in both the economies from the slowdown caused by the pandemic.

Ravin said that over 650 US companies were represented in Bengaluru. “The US firms recognise the intrinsic value in working with Indian tech partners, investing in Indian markets, and facilitating mutually beneficial commercial ties that only strengthen our overall bilateral relationship. It is our hope that we can continue this trend into 2022 and beyond,” she said, speaking at the Bengaluru Tech Summit.

Goyal is expected to ask Tai for greater market access for India in the US, particularly for the auto-mobile, engineering and agricultural products.

President Joe Biden’s administration too has been asking New Delhi to make it easier for the US companies to do business in India.

India and the US have been trying to negotiate a trade deal since 2018. The two sides were close to signing one during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with the then US President Donald Trump in New York in September 2019, but they could not narrow down differences on certain key issues.

A “mini trade deal” with “limited scope” was then expected to be inked after the Trump-Modi meeting in New Delhi on February 25, 2020, but it was also shelved.

Modi had his first in-person meeting with Trump’s successor Joe Biden in Washington D.C. on September 24.

The Trade Policy Forum had not been convened since 2017, as the erstwhile Trump Administration had not been interested in managing bilateral trade issues through it.

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