Trade deal: India and the US may sign joint statement on the BTA soon, says Goyal
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: India and the United States are likely to sign a joint statement on the first tranche of their potential bilateral trade deal (BTA) in the next four or five days, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.
He also said there is no investment commitment in this pact.
After their joint statement, a legal agreement for the first tranche of the pact is expected to be signed by mid-March, he told reporters, the media reported.
The US will then come out with an executive order on reducing tariffs on India to 18 percent.
As of now, Indian goods exported to the US attract a 25 percent reciprocal tariff and a 25 percent additional punitive tariff for buying Russian crude oil.
“We are hopeful of signing that legal agreement,” Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said.
The signing of the legal text will lead to a cut in tariffs by India on certain US goods.
Asserting that while there is no investment commitment from India to the US in the proposed deal, Goyal said it is natural that India may need to source more products from the US in view of its Viksit Bharat 2047 goal.
“The fast-paced growth at which India is going ahead in our journey in the Amritkal to Viksit Bharat 2047, we will need large volumes of energy, we will need large number of data centre equipment, ICT products, our steel capacity is going to double from today’s 140 million tons to about 300 million tons in the next few years,” he added.
India may need to import goods worth an estimated USD 500 billion from the US in the next five years, Goyal said.
His remarks came after President Donald Trump, while announcing the trade deal on Tuesday, claimed that India has committed to USD 500 investment in the US.
“We can clearly see the potential of what we can procure from the United States of America over the next five years,” Goyal said.
India’s aircraft purchases from the US alone, including orders that are placed or yet-to-be-placed, are nearly USD 70-80 billion. Adding the engines and other spare parts, it will probably cost USD 100 billion, he added.
Goyal also spoke about the data centre tax holiday being provided for in the Union Budget for 2026-27. “Imagine, if we get USD 100-150 billion of investments in data centres, we will obviously need equipment for those data centres.”
The BTA between India and the US, formally proposed in February 2025 following directives from the leadership of both nations, seeks to more than double bilateral trade, from the current USD 191 billion to USD 500 billion by 2030. “And if we have to achieve that, we will certainly need to do a lot more exports and a lot more sourcing both between the USA and India,” Goyal stressed.
The to-be-signed legal agreement will allow India to reduce tariffs on US goods. “Theirs are executive tariffs, ours are the most-favoured nation (MFN) tariffs. The MFN tariffs reduction can only take place after the legal agreement has been signed,” Agrawal clarified.
