New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday that the first tranche of the India-US bilateral trade agreement has almost been finalised, and a team of his ministry officials is in Washington for the discussions.

“We have almost finalised the free trade agreement, the first tranche of the bilateral trade agreement with them,” the minister told journalists.

“We are trying to work out what would be the mechanism by which India can get preferential market access in the US market compared to our competitors,” he said.

The Indian team will discuss these aspects while they are in Washington, he added.

The Indian trade delegation led by chief negotiator Darpan Jain is in the United States for a three-day visit from April 20-22 for the trade talks.

Earlier, India and the United States decided to reschedule the meeting between teams headed by the chief trade negotiators of the two countries, following the US Supreme Court striking down President Donald Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariff hikes. The apex court ruled that the executive branch exceeded its constitutional authority by using emergency powers to levy broad import duties.

The proposed visit of the Indian team to Washington, scheduled for February 23, to give the final touches to the bilateral trade deal, was postponed so that the two countries could study the developments flowing from the US Supreme Court judgment. It was decided at the time to set a new date for the meeting that would be convenient for both sides.

After the big setback in the Supreme Court, President Trump raised the global tariffs from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.

India and the US were at an advanced stage in the finalisation of the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement, with the Trump administration agreeing to reduce tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent. However, the tariff structure in the US has changed following the Supreme Court ruling.

The meeting is also expected to take up the issue of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) launching, last month, a Section 301 investigation, which includes India and China among 60 economies in its ambit.

The investigations are aimed at finding out whether acts, policies, and practices of each of these economies related to the failure to impose and effectively enforce a ban on the import of goods produced with forced labour are unreasonable or discriminatory, and burden or restrict US commerce.

–IANS

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