With Trump all set to visit India, United States just backed off from signing trade deal with Indiia. India had been eyeing and keen to sign the trade deal on the visit of US President Donald Trummp. As per higher officials, US stepped back from signing the trade deal.However, the officals are still silent why US backed off from the trade deal but reports suggest that US is planning to sign for a bigger and more ambitious deal.
Sources revealed that the two sides had got "pretty much of a handle" over the contentious issues that had stalled such a deal in the past. They had worked on resolving "a set of issues that dealt with lowering tariffs and providing market access on both sides" in a range of sectors and then to create a package acceptable to both sides.
This included the US demand for relaxing price restrictions on certain medical devices and India's demand that the US restore the Generalised Systems of Preferences (GSP) that it had withdrawn last June. The GSP had allowed Indian manufacturers duty free exports of over 3,000 select products to the US.
Also Read: Delhi CM and Dy CM Kejriwal and Sisodia not invited for Melania Trump's visit to school
Yet when the two sides were very close to clinching the mini deal, a source reveals that the US negotiators said they wanted to put it on hold and go in for a more ambitious deal later. The source said, "The US side was very upfront about it. They acknowledged that both sides had worked very hard for it. But said they wanted to take a deep breath on the deal and revisit it later.
And that they wanted to make it even bigger." President Trump in recent public meetings in the US, while expressing his unhappiness about India's high tariffs, had also stated that America and India were planning to sign an even "bigger deal" later.
Meanwhile, in a background briefing to the media, a senior US administration official said, "The trade and economic relationship with India is critically important to the United States and I think also the United States market is critical to the Indian government. We do want to make sure that we get the balance right. We want to address a lot of concerns and we're not quite there yet. We will likely have discussion with the Prime Minister about these concerns and continue the discussion beyond the visit." The focus of the Trump visit has now shifted to major deals on the energy and defence sectors, apart from homeland security.