India Engages in Trade Talks with US

(MENAFN) India announced on Tuesday that it is currently engaged in negotiations with the United States to establish a bilateral trade agreement, following the imposition of steep tariffs by the US government on Indian exports.

These include a 50% duty, with an added 25% levy specifically targeting India’s ongoing oil trade with Russia.

"... We are in dialogue with them (US) for a bilateral trade agreement," stated Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal during an event in the national capital, New Delhi.

The punitive tariffs, implemented late last month, were introduced under the administration of US President Donald Trump.

According to Trump, the decision to hike tariffs was partially in response to India’s continued purchase of Russian crude. Prior to this, Washington had already enforced a 25% baseline tariff after trade discussions with New Delhi failed to yield a mutual agreement.

Minister Goyal commented that it was "unfortunate that certain important players, certain important countries, have chosen to forego the agenda of sustainability ... ." India has described the recent US-imposed penalties as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable.”

These developments followed a fresh wave of criticism from President Trump, who on Monday once again denounced the trade dynamics between the two nations.

He characterized the arrangement as a "totally one-sided disaster," claiming that while India has now “offered to cut their Tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago.”

On Truth Social, Trump elaborated further: “What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us. In other words, they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest ‘client,’ but we sell them very little - Until now a totally one sided relationship, and it has been for many decades.”

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