External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar revealed that India and the US had a "very open discussion" on trade, leading to an agreement between PM Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump to finalize a bilateral trade deal by fall this year. Speaking at an event in Delhi with Kyung-wha Kang of Asia Society, Jaishankar emphasized the active and intense trade discussions between both nations. He also highlighted Union Minister Piyush Goyal’s visit to the US in February and noted the strengthening of defense ties, with the US becoming more open to technology partnerships. Is this a new era for India-US relations? Stay tuned for updates.
#IndiaUSTrade#JaishankarSpeech#ModiTrumpDeal #BilateralAgreement #EconomicPartnership
#IndiaUSTrade#JaishankarSpeech#ModiTrumpDeal #BilateralAgreement #EconomicPartnership
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00:00On trade, we had a very open discussion and the result of that discussion was that the
00:09Prime Minister and the President agreed that we would conclude, you rightly said, not a
00:16free trade agreement but a bilateral trade agreement.
00:19And at the end of the day, finally, forgive my saying it, presented us with a take it
00:24or leave it situation and we left it.
00:27There's a very active and intense trade discussion going on.
00:32On trade, we had a very open discussion and the result of that discussion was that the
00:41Prime Minister and the President agreed that we would conclude, you rightly said, not a
00:48free trade agreement but a bilateral trade agreement by fall this year.
00:54And that is what is currently under discussion.
00:59We have a team here.
01:00By the way, it's not that they are kicking off the discussion.
01:04My colleague, the Trade Minister, the Commerce Minister was in the U.S. last month.
01:11And since then, actually, we've been working the trade account through virtual means.
01:17So there's a very active and intense trade discussion going on at this point of time.
01:25This brings me to the trade part of what you asked.
01:28Look, we did not sign RCEP for this reason.
01:34We through the RCEP discussions, we continuously sought protections and safeguards because
01:42we had apprehensions about a surge of imports, essentially spurred by non-market and subsidy
01:52support.
01:53We didn't get it.
01:55The RCEP partners did not take our concerns seriously.
01:59And at the end of the day, finally, forgive my saying it, presented us with a take it
02:04or leave it situation and we left it.
02:09And I think today, if you ask people, at that time when we did it, perhaps opinions
02:14were a bit more divided.
02:15Today, I think there's a much stronger consensus that not joining RCEP for a country like India
02:23was a wise decision because, see, the nature of RCEP, RCEP is a supply chain architecture
02:30system, where rules of origin have very limited meaning.
02:35I mean, they can't be verified in the way in which it used to be before.
02:39So the way the flows would come at us, I mean, already we are today struggling with some
02:46very serious adverse trade balances.
02:49There are deep concerns in this country about the hollowing out of our industrial capacity.
02:54We believe that we are getting, again, a lot of unfair competition out of economies east
03:00of India.
03:02So for sake of diplomacy, I will not take names.
03:07And I think all these were factors into our thinking.