India-US trade talks may have hit plateau, says Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India-US trade negotiations are continuing but may have reached a plateau, with both sides finding further concessions difficult. She said the bilateral trade balance currently favours India as Washington seeks to reduce its deficit.

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday that India-US trade negotiations are continuing but may have hit a plateau and added that the bilateral trade balance currently favours India.

Speaking at the Munich Leaders Meeting 2026 here, FM Sitharaman said the proposed trade agreement had been hard and very vigorously negotiated.

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“The negotiations are still ongoing although we would like to believe both sides have reached a plateau beyond which giving or taking might be very, very difficult,” she said.

The minister said the two countries could still explore whether there was any room for further negotiations.

The trade balance currently favoured India and that the United States was seeking to reduce its trade deficit, said FM Sitharaman.

She said the US position reflected concerns over losses it believed had accumulated in its trade relationship with India over the years.

The negotiations are being held under a framework for an interim trade agreement announced in February 2026.

India and the US had said they would work towards finalising the interim pact while continuing talks on a broader bilateral trade agreement.

Moreover, the Finance Minister cited the India-European Union trade agreement as an example of India’s approach to negotiating trade pacts.

She said the EU agreement would cover economies representing about two billion people and around a quarter of global GDP.

“The mother of all deals” was an apt description for the agreement, FM Sitharaman said, referring to a phrase used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

She said India had opened up 92.5 per cent of its tariff lines and about 97 per cent of trade value under the agreement, while the EU had opened up about 99 per cent of trade value and around 97 per cent of tariff lines.

FM Sitharaman said the selection of market access commitments was based on the complementarity of the two economies and the need to ensure that India’s competitiveness was not adversely affected.