India, US Will Find a Fix That Will Work for Both Nations on the Trade Front: EAM

New Delhi: India and the United States will “find a fix” that will “work for both” nations on the trade front and New Delhi “sees a window (of opportunity) and wants to seize that window” on trade pacts with various nations, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said at the Global Technology Summit here on Friday. Pointing out that “this time around, we are certainly geared up for a very high degree of urgency”, the minister conceded that “we (the world) are heading for a period of sharp competition and contestation.”

The EAM also said there is a connection between Technology and MAGA (Make America Great Again), pointing to the objective of US President Donald Trump. At the summit, he also indicated India has come to a conclusion that the nuclear liability law will need to be amended since the “current law has not instilled confidence in the international nuclear community” when it comes to setting up nuclear power plants in India. In response to a question on whether India could ban the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm “DeepSeek”, the minister said he would be “deeply evasive” on answering the question.

The EAM’s comments come soon after the US President put a 90-day pause on higher tariffs on several countries (including India), with the sole exception of China, with whom the US is now engaged in a full-scale trade war. “The US has changed its approach of dealing with the world,” the EAM said. He pointed out despite “four years of talking” in the Trump administration first term (2017-20), the “bottom line was that the trade deal (between the two nations) didn’t get done”. The EAM stated: “We see a window (of opportunity) and want to seize that window. The trade teams are charged up… The US has been fairly quick to respond.” Referring to the decision taken after talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump in February this year on a proposed bilateral trade pact to be finalized by autumn this year, he said: “We (India and the US) actually have conceptually an agreement that we will do a bilateral trade agreement, that we will find a fix which will work for both," he stated. The minister added with a chuckle: “We have gathered here today to discuss the other T word (technology) and I do want you to reflect on the connection between the first T (trade/tariffs) and the second T (technology) but we also are gathered in a very changed landscape from what it was just a year ago.” He added: “Nothing is only trade any more. Nothing is purely business anymore. Everything is also personal.”

Mr Jaishankar further said India would act courageously based on its perception of whether a multilateral trade pact would suit it or not, “even if it is against the trend” in the world. On both confrontation and later collaboration between the US and China in previous decades, the EAM likened it to a “Goldilocks problem” for India, and said that after its Independence, India got caught between the conflict between the US and China and later (from the 1970s) India was at the “wrong end” of the collaboration between the US and China.

Speaking at another event in Delhi later in an obvious reference to tariffs, Mr Jaishankar noted how “economic activity had been weaponised” and mentioned how nations were coping with rapid digitisation in an era of “trade barriers and export controls”.