New Delhi: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal Monday said US and India could not announce a trade package during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last month because the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was busy in negotiations with Japan and China.
“We couldn’t do a (trade) deal because when I met USTR (Lighthizer) he was busy with Japanese and Chinese negotiations. So the trade package got a little delayed. We’ve almost resolved the broad contours of what we’re going to announce,” Goyal said here at an event organised by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF).
Goyal, who was talking about his last meeting with Lighthizer in New York during Modi’s visit there, said he does not see “any great difficulty in closing the gap” as far as announcing a limited trade package is concerned.
“We will hopefully come out with our first set of agreements soon … We both believe that India and US should look at a much larger engagement in the days ahead, possibly an announcement for a bilateral agreement, which will go beyond the mere tinkering we are doing at present,” Goyal said, hinting at a much-talked-about free trade agreement between the US and India.
Last month, during a bilateral meeting between the US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Modi, the American President stated that India and US will first discuss a small trade deal followed by a larger agreement.
“Trade negotiations are very complex. A lot of back and forth is going on. We had a little pause because all of us were busy in our areas,” Goyal said. “But it’s on track, everything is going smoothly. Ambassador Lighthizer is a wonderful guy with whom I have hit off a good personal relationship and I don’t see any issue there.”
He added that Lighthizer literally held his hands and helped him learn the complexities of a trade negotiation.
The commerce minister further said that the limited trade deal will mostly look into “leveraging on each other’s strengths, especially when you see the comparative advantages that India has to offer in terms of skilled manpower, in terms of our technical expertise in different areas, our young engineers and leveraging this American corporation leverage their innovation”.
Also read: Why US-India trade deal didn’t work out on Modi trip & what next
RCEP will have to take care of India’s interests
Goyal further said that the Modi government will not sign the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) unless New Delhi’s concerns and sensitivities are addressed.
“Every interest of domestic industry, India and the people of India has to be protected before we execute any free trade agreement,” he said. “Prime Minister Modi protects India’s national interest first and does not fritter away FTAs like we saw in the 2009-10 period of the Congress regime where agreements were done in a hurry.”
He alleged that the Congress often signed agreements “asymmetrically to India’s interest” that were “detrimental” to he country in that there were “no gains on services trade and no gains on India’s market access in a significant measure to these countries”.
India and China are both members of the RCEP along with 10 ASEAN nations — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam — and their trade partners: Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
The 28th and final round of RCEP negotiations are underway in Bangkok, and member countries plan to conclude talks by next month. The RCEP negotiations were launched in 2012.
This will be the last ministerial meet before the 3rd Leaders’ Summit to be held on 4 November in Bangkok. Modi is expected to attend the summit, according to the commerce ministry.
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