 "Any trade deal has to be mutually beneficial: Jaishankar after Trump's 'zero tariff' offer claim")
Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, on Thursday (May 15) said that nothing is decided in the US-India trade talks at the moment.
Speaing to news agency ANI, the country’s top diplomat said, “Between India and the US, trade talks have been going on. These are complicated negotiations. Nothing is decided till everything is. Any trade deal has to be mutually beneficial; it has to work for both countries.”
“That would be our expectation from the trade deal. Until that is done, any judgment on it would be premature.” S Jaishankar on Thursday said in conversation with news agency ANI.
Trump claims India offered deal with zero tariffs
Jaishankar’s comments come on the heels of US President Donald Trump’s claim that India had offered the US a ‘zero-tariff’ trade deal .
Those remarks in turn follow his earlier remarks on April 30, when he said that talks with India on tariff issues were “going great” and exuded confidence in reaching a final deal soon. Speaking at an event in Michigan, he noted, “India tariff talks are going great, think we’ll have a deal soon.”
Earlier, Trump had also said that he told Apple CEO Tim Cook that he does not want the tech giant to build manufacturing plants in India.
India-US trade talks
new Delhi and Washington have been holding high-level trade negotiations to resolve tariff and market access issues that stemmed from Trump unilaterally imposing duties on its top trading partners to fill what he claims is an unfair trade deficit.
According to media reports, India had proposed to reduce its average tariff differential with the US from around 13 per cent to under 4 per cent— a 9-percentage-point drop. This would be among the most comprehensive moves by India to align its trade policies with major global partners.
In return, India wants a full exemption from both existing and potential future US tariff hikes, something that Washington has not offered to even UK.
With inputs from agencies
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