‘Commits’ becomes ‘intends’: White House 'silently' rewords India-US trade deal fact sheet a day after release

The United States has quietly modified key language in the India-US trade deal fact sheet just a day after the White House made it public.

One of the most notable changes involves the wording around India’s proposed purchases of American goods. The earlier version stated that India “commits” to buying more than $500 billion worth of US products. That has now been softened to say India “intends to buy,” subtly altering the tone of the commitment.

The fact sheet, released on Tuesday following the announcement of a reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade framework between the two countries, laid out the main pillars of the agreement. It said India would eliminate or lower tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of American agricultural and food products.

In its initial version, the document read: “India committed to buy more American products and purchase over $500 billion of US energy, information and communication technology, agricultural, coal, and other products.” However, the updated version available on the White House website now states that India “intends” to buy more American goods. It also removes the word “agricultural” from the list of categories.

Another revision concerns tariff reductions.

The earlier version said, “India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products”. The revised document drops the mention of “certain pulses” from that list.

Also read | From spices to seafood, how trade deal with US will expand export runway for India

Changes were also made to digital trade language.

The original fact sheet stated, “India will remove its digital services taxes” and “committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade”. In contrast, the updated version no longer says India will remove digital services taxes. It now only notes that “India committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules…"