India and US settle trade deal differences; approaching ‘landing point’: Jaishankar

India and the US continue to try to iron out differences on a proposed trade deal and talks are moving towards a “landing point”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, noting that the fundamentals of the bilateral strategic partnership remain unchanged.

The external affairs minister’s comments on the trade talks came more than a week after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said talks on a trade deal had reached a “plateau”.

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“I think we’re waiting on a few things. I wouldn’t be comfortable spilling the beans in public,” he said Tuesday night at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum when asked about the status of negotiations between the two parties.

Mr. Jaishankar said India’s commerce minister, the US Trade Representative (USTR) and other concerned officials are engaged in talks to move forward on a bilateral trade pact.

“When countries negotiate with an economy like the United States, obviously one part of it is what you agree between yourself and the US, and one part is how you do compared to competing economies.

“And that part of it is not entirely clear because not everyone has agreed. I think the people, the commerce secretaries, the USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) and our secretary of trade and industry are working on it. They’re sorting it out,” he said.

“I feel that this is an issue that is heading towards a tipping point,” Mr Jaishankar said.

India and the US have been in talks since early 2025 on a proposed trade pact to address tariff frictions, remove non-tariff barriers and strengthen bilateral market access.

India seeks better tariffs than its competitors for its goods in the US market.

Earlier this month, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the United States and India were working to finalize a bilateral trade deal, but a deal was not in immediate danger.

Mr Greer said both sides had identified issues that remained unresolved and were working towards an agreement.

In his remarks, Mr. Jaishankar also delved into Washington’s new approach to economic engagement.

“The US has a fundamentally different approach to the use of tariffs. But that, too, is a symptom of something else. The US today is determined to reindustrialize and reset the terms of access to its economy,” he said.

“That’s what the whole tariff debate is about. And the two are related: access to the American economy and the reindustrialization of America. That’s why what’s happening is that every major economy is engaging in negotiations with the United States on this issue,” he said.

“We are not alone in this. In our case, we are quite far along in this negotiation process,” he said.

Mr. Jaishankar also noted that the US is revising the terms of its alliances and contractual relationships and that this sentiment is most strongly felt in Europe and to some extent in some East Asian countries.

“We have many issues that we are working on with the United States, but we do not have a problem with the terms of the alliance because we are not officially an ally. We are a country that has a strong strategic partnership with the US, but a strategic partnership is a partnership; it is not an alliance,” he added.

“In our case, over the last 20 years we’ve worked out what we’ve seen as convergences, overlaps, shared common interests with the US, and we’ve agreed to pursue that. I don’t think that’s fundamentally changed,” he said.

India-US relations have seen a major downturn since Washington last year imposed punitive tariffs on India and President Donald Trump asserted his role in de-escalating military clashes between India and Pakistan from May 2025, prompting a sharp response from Indian officials.

Washington’s new immigration policy and its decision to increase the H1B visa fee have also contributed to the decline in Indo-US relations.

Ties have come under fresh pressure after the US decided to cut a key green card processing program for major global and Indian IT firms, including Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro.

Published – 14 Oct 2026 13:01 IST