Pulse of the problem? Could dal derail the India-US trade deal?

The long-pending trade deal between New Delhi and Washington has reportedly left many aggravated in the Donald Trump White House.

Now, two influential Republican senators have written to the President asking India to remove tariffs on US pulse imports.

But what happened? Will a dispute over dal derail the India–US trade talks?

Let’s take a closer look.

Republican senators write to Trump

Two Republican Senators, Steve Daines of Montana and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, have written to US President Donald Trump urging him to push India to remove a 30 per cent import tariff on yellow peas from the United States.

New Delhi announced this levy in October in the aftermath of Trump’s 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods. It took effect on November 1, 2025. In their letter, the senators called India’s move “unfair” and said it puts US producers at a “significant competitive disadvantage”.

“As a result of the unfair Indian tariffs, US pulse crop producers face a significant competitive disadvantage when exporting their high-quality product to India,” the letter read.

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“As the United States looks to rebalance trade disparities, American farmers are ready to help fill the gap. They have tremendous capacity to feed and fuel the world if trade opportunities are unleashed,” the lawmakers added.

The senators also thanked Trump for his attempts to secure a favourable trade deal for farmers in their home states. They urged him to continue to do so in any pact Washington makes with New Delhi. The senators also recalled how, in Trump’s first term, they raised the issue during the 2020 negotiations with India. They mentioned how Trump had “hand-delivered” their letter to PM Modi, which they said helped bring US producers to the negotiating table.

Why pulses matter

As the senators noted in their letter, India is the world’s largest consumer of pulses, comprising around 27 per cent of global consumption.

The data show that India is also a major importer of pulses. In FY 2023–24, India imported around 4.65 million tonnes of pulses, valued at roughly $3.75 billion (Rs. 341.06 billion). In 2024–25, imports climbed further to a record 6.5 million tonnes.

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Meanwhile, USDA export data show that the US exported around $73.4 million (Rs. 6.67 billion) worth of pulses to India in 2024. Montana and North Dakota, represented by Daines and Cramer, are also major producers of yellow peas and other pulses.

According to reports, New Delhi did not impose the tariffs as part of a tit-for-tat exchange with America. Instead, India had earlier allowed duty-free imports of yellow peas until March 31, 2026. It imposed the tariffs largely due to domestic political considerations after being urged by farmers, who were suffering from falling prices, to act.

According to Bloomberg, India had waived import duties on some pulse varieties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to tamp down on food inflation.

Will this derail the trade deal?

The development comes at a key moment. India and the United States have long been negotiating a bilateral trade agreement to boost their already considerable trade relationship.

In 2024, US goods exports to India stood at $41.5 billion (Rs. 3,774.43 billion), while imports from India were around $87.3 billion (Rs. 7,936.64 billion), leaving Washington with a trade deficit of roughly $45 billion (Rs. 4,092.75 billion). Trump has been obsessed with trade deficits from the time he first took office in 2017.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has claimed India’s average applied tariff on agricultural products stands at 39 per cent, compared with an average of 5 per cent in the US. USTR has also flagged several technical barriers to trade, regulatory hurdles and market access restrictions in sectors including agriculture, which it claims have reduced US exports to India.

While Washington wants India to open up its dairy and agricultural sectors to farmers, New Delhi has insisted it will not do so and that these politically sensitive sectors are a red line.

Modi earlier vowed that India would “protect its farmers at any cost”, while External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, calling these sectors red lines, said: “Our bottom lines, our red lines have to be respected.”

“The US side’s focus continues to be on the opening up of India’s agriculture and dairy sectors, and the government has already made its red lines very clear,” a person in the know told Hindustan Times.

Some say it could derail the deal.

“Indian farmers are a red line. If a trade deal demands opening India’s pulse market at the cost of domestic producers, there will be no trade deal,” an expert told India Today.

It remains to be seen where India and US diplomats go from here. It is possible that India could offer some relief on US pulses in exchange for US easing tariffs on Indian goods. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal previously said the two sides “have been close to a deal” on several occasions.

With inputs from agencies