First Tranche Of India-US Trade Deal Finalised, Draft To Be Out Soon

The first phase of a trade deal between India and the United States has been finalised and is undergoing legal drafting, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.

"The US bilateral trade agreement first tranche has been finalised. It's going through final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalise that soon and operationalise that once we get comparable advantage or competitive advantage over our peer countries," Goyal, addressing the SRCC Centenary Conclave in Delhi, said.

Later, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said that the negotiations on the US trade pact are moving in the right direction.

"Probably we are in a very good zone. We anticipate closing the deal and signing the deal at the earliest possible time," he told reporters.

Agarwal added that the trade deal has to be signed when the overall tariff structure would be formalised in the US.

"So there is a parallel work being done in the US also to get back the tariff structure and based on some of the outcomes under (Section) 301, we will progress towards signing the deal at a mutually agreed time," he said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum this week, said negotiations are heading towards a "landing point", while noting that the core fundamentals of the bilateral strategic partnership remain unchanged. 

"When countries negotiate with an economy like the United States, obviously one part of it is what you work out between yourselves and the US, and one part of it is how do you fare vis-a-vis competitive economies," Jaishankar said.

"And that part of it is not entirely clear because not everybody has worked out a deal. I think people, the trade ministers, USTR (US Trade Representative) there and our Commerce and Industry Minister are there working on that. They're ironing it out," he said.

"My sense is that this is an issue which is heading towards a landing point," Jaishankar added.

India and the US have been in talks since early 2025 on the proposed trade pact to address tariff friction, eliminate non-tariff barriers, and boost bilateral market access.

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

Earlier this month, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the United States and India were working to finalise a bilateral trade deal, but an agreement was not imminent.

Greer said the two sides identified the issues that remained unresolved and were working towards an agreement.

The India-US relations witnessed a major downturn after Washington imposed punitive tariffs on India last year and President Donald Trump made assertions regarding his role in de-escalating the India-Pakistan military clashes of May 2025 that drew sharp reaction from Indian officials.

Washington's new immigration policy and its decision to increase H1B visa fee also contributed to the slide in India-US ties.

The ties came under fresh strain after the US decided to restrict a key green-card processing programme for major global and Indian IT firms, including Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro.