India engaged with US to seal trade pact: EAM Jaishankar

The impact of US President Donald Trumps reciprocal tariffs is not yet known and New Delhis strategy to deal with the situation is to firm up a bilateral trade pact with Washington by fall of this year External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on WednesdayIn the first detailed response to the US policy on tariff Jaishankar said India is perhaps the only country to reach an understanding with Washington to seal a trade deal after Trump assumed the presidency for the second timeThe external affairs ministers comments came hours after Trumps sweeping tariffs against around five countries including India came into force triggering massive trade disruptions and fears of a global economic recessionIndia is among the countries that have adopted a cautious approach in reacting to potentially seismic action saying it is engaged with the Trump administration on the bilateral trade agreement BTAI dont think its possible to speak about what would be the impact because we dont know What is our strategy I think thats pretty clear Jaishankar said at News 18 Rising Bharat SummitWe decided that we will engage the Trump administration early on this set of issues and we were very open with them very constructive with them as they were with us and what we agreed to do was to try to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement by fall of this year he saidFollowing talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump in Washington DC in February the two sides announced to negotiate the first tranche of the BTA by the fall of 2025I think we are the only country after President Trump has assumed presidency the second time which has actually reached such an understanding in principle Jaishankar saidHe said every country in the world today is fashioning its own strategy to dealing with the United States and that Indias goal is to strike a trade pact with the Trump administrationIn our case our strategy has a goal And the goal is to see whether its possible to actually deal with this situation by concluding a bilateral trade agreement And I should add that in an interesting way this has long been our objective he saidJaishankar said the present situation may have created the circumstances for such a serious conversation on the trade dealBut if you look at President Trumps first term we were actually negotiating a trade deal which could not fructify and if one looks even at Bidens administration we discussed trade possibilities and we ended up with the IPEF initiative he saidIn line with Washingtons longterm vision for the IndoPacific then US President Joe Biden launched the ambitious IndoPacific Economic Framework for Prosperity IPEF in May 2022It was an initiative aimed at deeper cooperation among likeminded countries in areas like clean energy supplychain resilience and digital tradeThey the Biden administration were very averse to doing a bilateral agreement From the Indian perspective actually working out something bilaterally with the United States is not at all a sort of a negative or a sort of an unwanted situation Jaishankar saidOn the contrary it is something which has long been our objective he addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoeveratOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params