India did not do trade agreements in a hurry or with a “gun to our head”, said Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday, speaking at the Berlin Global Dialogue (BGD 2025) in Germany.
He said that India was actively negotiating trade pacts with countries and regions, including the European Union (EU) and the United States of America.
“We are in active dialogue with the EU. We are talking to the US, but we do not do deals in a hurry and we do not do deals with deadlines or with a gun to our head,” he said at BGD 2025.
The Indian minister was in Berlin to participate in the dialogue, a meeting of leaders and German businesses to discuss ways to boost bilateral trade and investments.
Goyal said that a trade deal should be viewed with a long-term perspective. India, he added, never took decisions in a rush or in the heat of the moment. To deal with the higher trade tariffs, set by US President Donald Trump, India was looking at newer markets, said the minister.
Asked if India was getting a fair trade deal that was long term but with conditions attached, Goyal said, “I do not think India has ever decided who its friends will be based on any other considerations other than national interest… and [if] somebody tells me, ‘You can’t be friends with the EU’, I won’t accept that, or [if] somebody tells me tomorrow [that] I can’t work with Kenya, it’s not acceptable.”
The decision to buy a particular product from a country was something that the entire world would have to take a call on, he said.
“I was reading in today’s paper, Germany is asking for an exemption from US sanctions on oil… The UK already has sorted or probably got an exemption for procuring oil from the US… so then, why single out India,” he wondered.
These remarks assume significance as the US is putting pressure on India to stop buying crude oil from Russia.
On October 22, the US government imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest crude oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, barring all American entities and individuals from conducting business with them.
The US has imposed 25 per cent tariffs on India as a penalty for purchasing oil from Russia. This is over and above the 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods entering American markets. Overall, Indian goods are attracting a steep 50 per cent additional import duties in the US.
New Delhi has described these duties as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.
Trade deals are about trust and relationship
The 50 per cent tariff arbitrarily imposed by Donald Trump has caused quite a large crack in the India-US relationship. The ramifications go well beyond trade and commerce.
Referring to the connection between trade and trust, Goyal said, “Trade deals are for a longer duration. It is not only about tariffs or access to goods and services, it is also about trust and relationship… Trade deals in a longer context are far more than just tariffs, and we are just focused on the current day issues and tariffs.”
India and the US have been negotiating a bilateral trade agreement since March this year. So far, five rounds of talks have been completed.
Goyal on Thursday stated that these negotiations were progressing, and expressed hope that both sides would work towards a fair and equitable agreement in the near future.
An Indian official team, headed by Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal, was in Washington last week to hold trade talks with their US counterparts. The three-day talks ended on October 17.
In February this year, leaders of India and the US directed officials to negotiate a proposed Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). They fixed a deadline to conclude the first tranche of the pact by the fall of 2025. Last month, Goyal also led an official delegation to New York for trade talks.
The talks halted for a brief period after the US announced high tariffs on Indian goods.
After a brief gap, Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch held talks with Indian officials in New Delhi on September 16. In that meeting, both sides agreed to push for an early and mutually beneficial agreement.
The proposed pact aims to more than double the bilateral trade to USD 500 billion by 2030 from the current USD 191 billion.
The US remained India’s largest trading partner for the fourth consecutive year in 2024-25, with bilateral trade valued at USD 131.84 billion (USD 86.5 billion exports).
The US accounts for about 18 per cent of India’s total goods exports, 6.22 per cent of imports, and 10.73 per cent of the country’s total merchandise trade.
India’s merchandise exports to the US declined by 11.93 per cent to USD 5.46 billion in September due to the high tariffs imposed by Washington, while imports increased by 11.78 per cent to USD 3.98 billion during the month, according to the Commerce Ministry data.
