By Anjan Roy
It is becoming increasingly clear that the acclaimed trade deal between India and US is at best a high profile theatrical. So far, it is not even on paper. It exists on sound waves. Experts are eagerly looking for the joint statement of the two countries on the trade agreement. So far, even that has not emerged, only promises of it.
India has so far desisted from giving a formal statement on the deal, if ever any agreement of that kind been finalised. Nor has the United States made any detailed statement on the agreement.
It is possible to figure out from different cues what might have been happening around Indo-US trade deal, both in India and in America. The American pressure tactics did not work on India and when stood out, Americans had got frustrated. This was clear from the various comments made by Trump officials, as well as Trump himself, about India and its economic prospects.
A one point, Donald Trump had called Indian economy “dead”, along with his various marque discourteous comments. These developed had alienated the Indian team as well as top leadership. Prime Minister Modi had expressly turned down receiving calls from Donald Trump.
Against this background, the sudden conclusion of the Indo-EU trade deal and the diplomatic hype around the India-EU trade agreement had left United States looking rather left out in the cold. Donald Trump hated being left out, especially in the face of his bete noire Europe and European Union.
Trump felt an urgent necessity to reclaim the lost ground and was looking for opportunities for a re-capture. He made unilateral announcement of the trade deal from Washington, which seems to have caught the Indian side unawares.
The claimed trade agreement was too lucrative as a diplomatic rehabilitation for India to turn it down as only an announcement. India however did not say anything specific about a trade deal being in place, though the prime Minster welcomed the presidential announcement with diplomatic civility.
Thus, what now remained were the tall claims from United States, specially from its president, Donald Trump. This is a face-saving high decibel claim from the US president about his personal achievement.
Trump had asked for the moon from India. He wanted India to drop all tariffs on American goods entering India, against his own tariffs on Indian products entering United States. The Americans have claimed India has accepted this in full. That is spreading pure misinformation, at best.
There is no confirmation from India that all American products will enter India duty free. Instead, some stray remarks indicate there would be graded tariffs on products entering India, according to agreed schedules, which the two sides must have been working on for the last so many months.
It cannot however be that India makes concessions across the board to American imports into the country, whereas its own articles should be subjected to 18% or maybe more. There has been no official confirmation of the American claims from any of the sources.
On India’s purchases of Russian oils, all that has come from the official briefings is that India was open to examining the possibility of importing Venezuelan crude oil. Indeed, if Venezuelan oil is lower priced than Russian crude, it would be welcome and profitable for India to shift its purchases.
India had pre-existing arrangements with the Venezuelan public sector oil companies for purchase of its oil. The American coup in Venezuela was a much later development.
The sole purpose of buying Russian oils was the price advantage. Russian crude costs cheaper with a heavy discount as Russian sales elsewhere were falling off. Russian oil purchases had helped bring down the oil import bill substantially.
Russian oil purchases are nowhere near to its end. If anything, any substantial cut down is also far off given that any reset will take years to give effect to. Pre-existing contracts cannot suddenly be reneged.
Moving away from Russian crude purchases under pressure would not be in the long term interests of the country. Particularly since, Russia remains a rusted defence supplier as well as reliable partner in strategic matters. Meanwhile, the diplomatic gains remain in place for India and also for the unpredictable American president. (IPA Service)
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