US Trade Representative Katherine Tai is visiting India next week to hold the annual U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum along with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on January 12. This year, a broad set of issues to enhance the resiliency of the trade relationship, including agriculture, industrial products, services, and the protection of intellectual property, among other topics, will be discussed at the forum, as per the release.
This forum plays a crucial role in strengthening and expanding the bilateral economic and trade relationship between the nations. It has helped in removing trade barriers and facilitated cooperation on some of the key issues under the leadership of Tai and Goyal.
After the forum, Tai will call upon the Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
On the following day, she will be calling upon civil society representatives, business leaders, and stakeholders to discuss the Biden-Harris Administration’s engagement and commitment to fostering closer ties between the US and India.
The trade relationship between both nations continues to grow stronger and reap beneficial harvests. Last year, both leaders reached several milestone agreements that delivered market access for American farmers and producers, and high-quality products to Indian consumers, read the press release.
The achievements of last year include a 70 per cent reduction of the tariff on pecans, the removal of retaliatory tariffs on almonds, chickpeas, apples, lentils and walnuts, boric acid, and diagnostic reagents. The list also includes commitments for additional tariff reductions on frozen turkey, and frozen duck, as well as fresh, frozen, dried, and processed blueberries and cranberries.
Both nations also reached agreements in order to resolve all seven of their outstanding World Trade Organization disputes.
The US emerged as India's biggest trading partner during the first half of the financial year 2023-24. The US was India's biggest trading partner in 2022-23 with bilateral trade rising 7.65% to $128.55 billion in 2022-23 against $119.5 billion in 2021-22, said US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti in his post.