India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will visit the US with a delegation on 22 September. The main objective of this tour is to intensify the negotiations on the long pending trade agreement. The journey is taking place when the negotiations between India and the US started again last week, which has seen positive progress. The Ministry of Commerce said in an official statement that the delegation’s goal is to ‘complete the business agreement with mutual profit as soon as possible.
Prior to the visit, there was a long discussion between American chief negotiator Brendon Lynch and his Indian counterpart Rajesh Aggarwal in New Delhi. Both countries described this meeting as very positive and they agreed to complete the agreement soon.
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This dialogue is also important because the sixth round of talks were postponed due to tariff hike on August 25. The US had imposed a 25% tariff on India from August 7, which later reached 50% with an additional fee of 25% on Russian oil procurement. In addition, India also opposed the demand to open its market for American agriculture and dairy products, which led to a hindrance in negotiations.
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Despite increasing tension between the two countries in August, there has been a softening of diplomatic trend in recent weeks. Sergio Gore, nominated for the post of Ambassador to the US, has told the senators that the conversation has reached a ‘important’ phase and may be resolved in a few weeks. He described Trump and Modi’s relationship as ‘incredible’ and unique, which has increased the hope of early agreement. Goyal also visited the US in May earlier and interacted with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik.