New beginning of India-US trade talk! Veterans will sit at the table in Delhi, know what is at stake

The chief trade negotiators of the US and India will hold a four-day meeting here from Monday to finalize the details of the interim trade agreement. The outlines of the interim trade agreement were decided in February. The American team will be led by its chief negotiator Brendan Lynch and India’s chief negotiator will be Darpan Jain. Jain is Additional Secretary in the Commerce Department. The Commerce Ministry said that both sides propose to finalize the details of the interim agreement and take forward negotiations on several areas such as market access, non-tariff measures, customs and trade facilitation, investment promotion and economic security under a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement.

Tariff was increased from 50 to 18 percent

India and the US issued a joint statement on February 7 and agreed on the framework of an interim trade agreement on mutually beneficial trade. Now both the parties will have to finalize the legal draft of this agreement. This framework reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to a comprehensive India-US BTA dialogue. As per the outline, the US had agreed to reduce the duty on India from 50 percent to 18 percent.

It had removed the 25 percent duty on Indian goods on purchasing Russian oil and under the agreement the remaining 25 percent was to be reduced to 18 percent. But, on February 20 this year, the US Supreme Court ruled against the sweeping retaliatory tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. These charges were imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977.

When the meeting was canceled

The President of America announced to impose 10 percent duty on all countries for 150 days from February 24. In view of these changes, a meeting was scheduled between the chief negotiators of India and America in February, which was postponed. The Indian contingent visited the US from April 20 to 23, 2026, and both sides met in Washington. To take the discussions forward, the US team led by the chief negotiator will visit India from June 1 to 4, 2026.