New Delhi: Two days after President Donald Trump hit out at India saying its tariff is no longer acceptable to the United States, a high-level trade delegation of India and US began talks in New Delhi. The two sides on Thursday met for informal talks while the formal discussions will take place on Friday.
India has said that its approach is to engage constructively and positively with the US and the two sides are looking at resolving several issues including that of tariff related.
“I understand that informal meetings are taking place today. Formal talks will take place tomorrow. In Osaka, when the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and President (Donald) Trump met, as you know, they had a very good meeting and naturally trade was also discussed. It was decided in that meeting that officials from both sides will meet to resolve all outstanding issues related to trade. Now there are quite a few issues on the table which you are aware. Our approach is to engage with them very constructively, in a very positive manner,” ministry of external affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
“I think it is important to keep in mind when we engage on this issue that the trajectory of the relationship remains positive. We have to keep in mind the bigger picture and within that big picture try to address all the issues which are on the table,” he added when questioned about President Trump’s comments with regard to high tariff by India.
India has put up a composite delegation comprising of officials of several ministry to sit for the talks and it being led by additional secretary level officer from the ministry of commerce. The American trade talks team is headed by US trade representative office in-charge of South and Central Asia Christopher Wilson.
For the India-US trade talks, sources said, data location, trade tariff and e-commerce are the main topics for discussions while the issue of 5G is off the table for now.
The US has for last several meetings expressed its unhappiness over new rules on e-commerce to protect Indian retail trade which has impacted America e-commerce groups like Amazon and Walmart (Flipkart) and after RBI made it compulsory for Mastercard and Visa to set up local servers for Indian data. Besides, the Americans have also been constantly raising issues of higher tariffs on several of its products.
Sources in Indian government said that they are approaching the talks with a mindset of “problem solving.”
