New Delhi: A team of Indian officials, currently in Washington for talks on the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement, will discuss aspects related to preferential market access for domestic goods in the US, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday.
“We have almost finalised the free trade agreement, the first tranche of the bilateral trade agreement with them.
“We are trying to … work out what would be the mechanism by which India can get a preferential market access in the US market compared to our competitors,” he told reporters here.
The Indian team, he said, will discuss these aspects while they are in Washington.
About a dozen officers from India are in Washington for three-day trade talks with the US authorities. As the tariff landscape has changed in the US, both sides may like to relook at the framework of the agreement, the text of which was released on February 7.
Following the US Supreme Court’s decision against the sweeping tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on a number of countries, the Trump administration imposed a 10 per cent tariff on all countries from February 24 for 150 days.
According to that framework, the US had agreed to reduce tariffs on India to 18 per cent, from 50 per cent. It had removed the 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods for buying Russian oil and was to cut the remaining 25 per cent to 18 per cent under the pact. But on February 20, the US Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which were imposed under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
After that, the President announced the imposition of 10 per cent tariffs on all countries for 150 days, starting February 24.
In light of these changes, a meeting between the chief negotiators of India and the US scheduled for February was postponed. Now, they are meeting in Washington from April 20, 2026.
Under the agreed framework, India proposed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products. India had also expressed its intentions to purchase USD 500 billion of US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal over the next five years.
Further, when India finalised the deal, it enjoyed a comparative advantage over its competitor countries. Now, with all US trading partners facing a uniform 10 per cent tariff, the pact requires recalibration.
As the circumstances have changed, every country is engaging with the US to see what the nature of its trade agreements with America is.
China has overtaken the US to emerge as India’s largest trading partner in 2025-26. The US was India’s largest trading partner for four consecutive years till 2024-25.
The country’s outbound shipments to the US grew marginally 0.92 per cent to USD 87.3 billion during the last fiscal year, while imports increased 15.95 per cent to USD 52.9 billion. The trade surplus declined to USD 34.4 billion in 2025-26 from USD 40.89 billion in 2024-25.
