Need Comparative Advantage For India In Deal, Says Goyal
Bessent made no bones about American president Donald Trump using the reciprocal tariffs last year to get countries to the negotiating table and strike deals, an objective that the Section 301 outcomes also seeks to achieve.While India and the US have been engaged in talks to finalise a trade deal, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal reiterated the need to ensure comparative advantage for India.“We had negotiated that deal on bringing down 50% tariff to 18%. The whole deal was centred around the competitive advantage over our neighbours and other competing countries. We were lower than all our neighbouring countries, all the Asean countries, other than Singapore. That is why the deal was attractive.“We have to have some reason to be able to enter into force the agreement that we have and to ensure that we get a competitive advantage over countries in the same stage of development or same cost structures as India, whether its Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, China apart from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and all our neighbours. Until that framework of getting that competitive advantage can be finalised, we can’t enter into force a US deal. That’s broadly the discussion,” Goyal said in London.
