Indian delegation may visit US for trade deal talks next month, seek preferential market access

AN amerindic delegation is expected to see booker taliaferro washington later this month to set ahead talks on an meantime bilateral trade agreement, with New Delhi seeking preferential market access for Indian merchandise over competing countries under the new US tariff architecture, people familiar with the matter said.The original framework, jointly announced on February 7, was thrown into uncertainty when the US Supreme Court on February 20 struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs as exceeding his statutory authority. With the legal basis for the proposed 18% tariff on Indian goods invalidated, both sides have been working to rebuild the agreement on firmer legal ground — even as Washington launched fresh Section 301 investigations against 16 countries, including India, as part of its effort to reconstruct tariff pressure through alternative legal mechanisms.US ambassador to India and special envoy to south and central Asia Sergio Gor on Thursday alluded to the forthcoming visit after a meeting with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington. “Highly productive meeting with @USTradeRep Ambassador Greer to discuss advancing @POTUS trade priorities in South and Central Asia. The United States and India have previously agreed to a trade deal, and we look forward to welcoming an Indian delegation to Washington later this month,” Gor said in a post on X.The visit is expected to give renewed momentum to trade talks and help resolve issues including the Section 301 investigations launched by the USTR on March 11, the people said, requesting anonymity. India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri is already on a three-day visit to Washington from April 8, adding senior diplomatic heft to the engagement.The finalisation of an interim bilateral trade agreement would, one of the people cited above said, automatically resolve several trade disputes between the two countries. India will, however, file a formal response to the USTR’s Section 301 investigation — the deadline for which is April 15. A public hearing on the matter is scheduled for early May.India is currently facing two probes under Section 301: one relating to alleged excess industrial capacity in sectors such as solar modules, and another concerning the use of forced labour. A total of 16 economies and blocs are under USTR scrutiny — China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan and India. According to the people cited above, the US could use Section 301 as a bargaining tool against some of these countries after the Supreme Court outlawed its reciprocal tariffs.India is, however, better placed than most given that New Delhi and Washington had already established a framework for an interim bilateral trade agreement. The two sides had been on course to sign a “mutually beneficial” interim trade agreement in March. But before the deal — which proposed an 18% tariff on most Indian goods — could be finalised, the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs of his choosing. The finalisation of any deal now awaits a legally tenable tariff architecture, the people said.The background to the February 7 joint statement is significant. Before it, India faced a 25% reciprocal tariff and an additional 25% punitive tariff for purchasing sanctioned Russian crude — a combined levy that had severely disadvantaged Indian exporters. The joint statement removed the 25% punitive tariff on the condition that India restrict imports of Russian oil, leaving only the 25% reciprocal tariff, which was then negotiated down to 18% — giving Indian merchandise a comparative advantage over competing countries such as China.The Supreme Court’s February 20 ruling invalidated those reciprocal tariffs. With that framework dismantled, the Trump administration invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a fresh uniform tariff — raised to its statutory ceiling of 15% within days — on imports from all countries. That levy is valid for 150 days and is set to expire in July, creating a hard deadline that the ongoing Section 301 investigations are expected to help bridge.