New Delhi, April 9 (IANS) India is perhaps the only country which has reached an understanding with the United States to ink a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) by the fall of this year, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Wednesday, as reciprocal tariffs came into effect with India facing 27 per cent tariffs. According to Jaishankar, New Delhi's plan is to solidify a trade deal, as the effects of US reciprocal tariffs are still unknown. At the ‘News 18 Rising Bharat Summit’ here, the Union Minister said: "We decided that we will engage the (Donald) Trump administration early on this set of issues and we were very open with them, very constructive with them as they were with us, and what we agreed to do was to try to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement by fall of this year."

Following bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump in Washington DC in February, the two nations announced that they would negotiate the first tranche of the BTA by the fall of 2025. Jaishankar said: "I think we are the only country after President Trump has assumed presidency the second time, which has actually reached such an understanding in principle." "In our case, our strategy has a goal. And the goal is to see whether it's possible to actually deal with this situation by concluding a bilateral trade agreement. And I should add that in an interesting way, this has long been our objective," the minister told the gathering.

In a bid to expand their bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030, India and the US have broadly reached an understanding to finalise the first tranche of BTA by fall 2025. According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, sectoral expert-level engagements under the BTA will start virtually in the coming weeks and pave the path for an early negotiating round in person.

/IANS