India, US agree to work towards resolving key bilateral trade issues

India and the United States will look at ways to expand its trade relations and cooperate on pending bilateral issues, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said soon after meeting Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal.

“Then I met with Minister Piyush Goyal. We agreed to revitalize engagement through the US-India Trade Policy Forum, find ways to expand our trade relationship, and cooperate on a broad set of issues,” Tai said in a tweet.

Tai, who was confirmed as a top US trade negotiator last week, discussed crucial issues with Goyal over a phone call on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Goyal on Friday said that trade deals should never be done in a hurry and should not be looked at only as tools of diplomacy. Therefore, India is extremely cautious in its approach to trade deals and wants to ensure reciprocity in trade deals.

“I’m glad to share with you that only I think yesterday, I had my first engagement with my counterpart in the US, Miss Katherine Tai… We hit it off extremely well yesterday in our very first engagement, and we are looking forward to quickly ramp up our discussions,” he said at the India Economic Conclave.

“Having said that we are looking at expanding our trade ties through removal of non trade barriers through better mutual recognition agreements through other means to expand both the trade in goods and services,” he added.

In the past, India had extensive discussions with the US on a mini trade deal. However, that didn’t get through.

“Of course, the US, new administration has broadly announced that they are not looking at free trade agreements in the near future. Probably they are also looking at the way India looks at it that doing these things in a hurry, is not always advisable,” he said.

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