Deal with India close but not there yet: Top US trade official

Washington, May 1 (IANS) India and the US are close to a trade deal but they are not there yet, the top US trade negotiator said on Wednesday.

US media and policy circles have been agog with talk of a US-India trade deal as the first to be announced in the rush for agreements to beat President Donald Trump's 90-day pause in the implementation of his sweeping levies on nearly all of America's trading partner countries.

"I wouldn't say finish line (but) close," Jamieson Greer, the US Trade Representative, told Fox News, when asked in an interview if a deal with India was close to the finish line.

"I have a standing call with India's Trade Minister. I sent my team to India for a week. They were here last week and I met with their chief negotiator," he added.

Asked about US Vice-President J.D. Vance's visit to India, Greer referred to the announcement by the two sides of a framework for trade negotiations between the two sides.

Greer is an old hand at the office of the US Trade Representative.

He served as Chief of Staff to Robert Lighthizer, the US Trade Representative in President Donald Trump's first term, when the US and India came very close to the finish line on a trade deal.

A deal was to be announced and signed during President Trump's visit to India in February 2020, but it fell through despite protracted and tough negotiations.

Top Indian trade negotiators blamed the US for it, alleging they "kept changing the goalpost".

Greer seemed far more bullish about a trade deal with South Korea in the present flush of negotiations, saying they have been most forward looking and the US strategy has been to go with the most ambitious proposals on the table.

"They've been very forward leaning," he said of the South Korean proposal.

--IANS

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