India and the United States have sorted out the bulk of the issues relating to their proposed trade deal, including tariff lines, and the pact could be sealed "soon" as talks continue to resolve the last stretch of concerns, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday, news agency PTI reported.
Source: PTI via The Hindu BusinessLine
Speaking at an interactive session at the HT Leadership Summit, Jaishankar said the negotiations are approaching the "finishing line". "Well, it's certainly our hope, and in many ways anticipation that we are at the last stretch. That's not a secret," he said, responding to a question on the trade pact negotiations.
The minister said most of the remaining concerns do not originate in New Delhi. "There is the last stretch of issues and in many cases these concerns are not so much at our end, because the changes have been more at the American end than our end," he said. "The hope is that we should close it out soon. It's always the case that in that last period, everybody's impatient."
"If you are serious, you go tariff line by tariff line. That takes time. Now we've done it the painstaking way... having put in that effort, we have now reached almost the finishing line." — S Jaishankar at the HT Leadership Summit
Jaishankar said India is seeking a deal that works in its favour against competing economies. "For us the key is that we want a trade deal which is beneficial, it is balanced and which would give us a comparative advantage over groups of comparable economies," he said, adding that the US is India's biggest market and the world's largest economy, so a deal with it would benefit the country.
The two countries have been engaged in talks since early 2025 on the proposed pact, which aims to address tariff friction, eliminate non-tariff barriers and boost bilateral market access, according to PTI. Saturday's remarks go a step beyond Jaishankar's October comments at the NDTV World Summit, when he described the deal as being in its "last mile", and follow the tranche-level talks reported earlier this month.
There has been speculation that India and the US may announce the trade deal following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, to be held in Miami on December 14 and 15. Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Mumbai that both sides are very close to firming up the trade deal, PTI reported.
The minister also placed the pact in a larger perspective, saying India's early trade deals with competitive Asian economies did not deliver the expected gains, while the free trade agreements done in the last few years have been much more thought through and strategically assessed.
If finalised, the deal could trigger an upswing in overall bilateral ties, which witnessed a downturn after Washington imposed punitive tariffs on India last year. Washington's new immigration policy, its increase in H-1B visa fees and its decision to restrict a key green-card processing programme for major global and Indian IT firms, including Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro, also contributed to the slide, PTI reported. No agreement has been signed yet, and Jaishankar's remarks describe negotiations still under way.