India did better than most nations in trade talks with US: Ex-official

Former US official Raymond Vickery praised India for its logical process in signing a trade framework with the US, contrasting it with President Trump's 'chaos'. He noted this unlocks new opportunities and highlights India's push for a formal agreement.

India's Deliberate Approach Praised

With India signing off on a framework for the bilateral trade agreement with the US a number of new opportunities have been unlocked for India. Speaking on the tenets of the framework, former US Assistant Secretary of Commerce Raymond Vickery said that India has done better than most other nations in having a logical and deliberate process rather than falling into the chaos created by US President Donald Trump. Vickery, in a conversation with ANI, noted that even today, India aspires to reach an agreement, which is how mostly agreements work.

Standard vs. Trump's Approach to Trade

"Well, I think the timeline is really completely out of the usual way in which great trading partners reach agreements. The standard way in which to do this is to work out details first, which takes more than a year to work out the details. And then when those details are worked out, to have a joint statement saying that this is the agreement," he said.

"This is not the Trump style, obviously. The style is to announce something which may or may not be reality and then to try to cram into the framework, if you will, which has been set, a set of standards which bring about a real agreement. So the timeline here, India has done well in terms of trying to work through kinds of details. But you will notice that on the India side, even as of today, India is talking about really reaching some agreement in a couple of months. And that would be a more usual way in which trade agreements work. And as I say, it has not been the style of the President Trump," he added.

Navigating the Russian Oil Issue

Vickery further said that the US and India need to cooperate on the Russian oil issue. The White House on Thursday (local time) revoked the additional 25% tariff on India after a commitment to stopping the import of Russian Oil.

"Nevertheless, there is a great need for these two great democracies, the US and India, to be able to cooperate on Russian oil, which of course is key to what happens about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So in regard to timeline, this is an unusual way to approach it. India has done better than most other nations in trying to have a logical and deliberate process rather than succumb to the chaos which President Trump favors to be able to have transactions in which he can claim victory," he said.

"And I think that the business of issuing an executive order now about Russian oil exemplifies this. President Trump said that Prime Minister Modi had agreed to stop buying Russian oil. Well, the relationship between Russia and India is not one which is going to be discarded overnight in regard to Russia or any other matter," he added.

The Need for a Lasting Agreement

Vickery further said that as India is still pushing for a process to adopt a formal agreement, the Trump administration also needs to move towards the same.

"And it remains to be seen whether or not there can be a sufficiently logical and deliberate process which will stand the test of time. You know, it's one thing to go on social media and say something. It's quite another thing to have an agreement which is operationally sufficient so that you have something which lasts more than for the immediate transaction. The whole problem here with the Trump administration is rather than trying to look at building the relationship between US and India, is to try to have a transaction to push these very complicated trade matters into a framework which is not one which necessarily stands the test of time," he said.

Official Framework for Interim Agreement

The US and India announced that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade (Interim Agreement). Today's framework reaffirmed the countries' commitment to the broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, launched by US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, which will include additional market access commitments and support more resilient supply chains.

The Interim Agreement between the United States and India will represent a historic milestone in our countries' partnership, demonstrating a common commitment to reciprocal and balanced trade based on mutual interests and concrete outcomes, as stated in the joint statement. (ANI)

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)