India is open to negotiations with the US with regards to the proposal to impose retaliatory duties, according to sources.
Most countries that have seen higher tariffs from US have approached the WTO. India is not unique in that sense, said top government officials.
Further, they added that India has simply said it reserves the right to retaliate, and has not directly retaliated. "We are open to negotiations with the US and will take a pragmatic approach in those," they said.
India intends to raise tariffs on a range of US-origin products, aiming to recover an estimated $1.9 billion in duties — the quantified impact of American Section 232 tariffs on Indian steel and aluminium exports.
Further, the sources that the US-India talks for the first tranche of the bilateral trade agreement are slated to conclude before the fall (September-October) deadline. "Let's see how fast it can be done," they added.
Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal on Thursday, too, said that talks are progressing in the right direction. "The Commerce Minister (Piyush Goyal) and chief negotiator (Rajesh Agrawal) are set to go to the US this week for talks," he said.
During the visit, Goyal is scheduled to meet with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over the potential trade pact.
The visit by Goyal also comes in the backdrop of China agreeing to join talks with the US, and the two have already slashed reciprocal tariffs on each other by 115 percentage points each. The US-China trade pact, if concluded, may pose a challenge to India's position as an alternate manufacturing superpower.
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