'Heading towards a landing point': Jaishankar signals progress in India-US trade talks

India and the US are continuing to engage to iron out differences over the proposed trade deal, with negotiations heading towards a “landing point”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said. He also noted that the core fundamentals of the bilateral strategic partnership remain unchanged.

Talks continue to resolve differences

The external affairs minister's comments on the trade negotiations came over a week after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said talks on the trade deal had reached a “plateau”.

“I think we are waiting on a few things. I wouldn't be comfortable spilling the beans in public,” he said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Tuesday evening when asked about the status of the negotiations between the two sides.

Jaishankar said India's trade minister, the US Trade Representative (USTR) and other officials concerned were engaged in talks to move forward on the bilateral trade pact.

“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.

“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 said.

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 tariff terms 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 had identified the unresolved issues and were working towards an agreement.

Tariffs and US re-industrialisation drive

In his remarks, Jaishankar also delved into Washington's new approach to economic engagement.

“The US has a fundamentally different approach to the use of tariffs. But even that is a symptom of something else. The US is today determined to re-industrialise and to reset the terms of access to its economy,” he said.

“That's what the whole tariff debate is about. And the two are connected: access to the American economy and the re-industrialisation of America. Therefore, what is happening is every significant economy is getting into a negotiation with the United States on this issue,” he said.

“We're not alone in this. In our case, we are pretty far advanced in that process of negotiation,” he said.

Strategic partnership with US remains unchanged

Jaishankar also noted that the US was revising the terms of its alliances and treaty relationships, with the impact being felt most strongly in Europe and, to some extent, in some East Asian countries.

“We have many issues we are working on with the United States, but we don't have an issue of the terms of alliance because we are not officially an ally. We are a country which has a strong strategic partnership with the US, but a strategic partnership is a partnership; it's not an alliance,” he added.

“In our case, for the last 20-odd years, we have worked out what we felt were convergences, overlaps, shared common interests with the US, and we had agreed that we would pursue that. I don't think that has fundamentally changed,” he said.

Tariffs, visa fees add to bilateral strain

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, drawing sharp reactions from Indian officials.

Washington's new immigration policy and its decision to increase the H-1B visa fee also contributed to the deterioration 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.