A day after unilaterally releasing a fact sheet on the interim India-US trade agreement, mentioning “certain pulses” among American agricultural products that will see tariff cuts by New Delhi, the White House has updated the document, removing those two words.
It has also made another key change in a reference to the purchase of $500-billion worth of US products overall, changing “India commits” in this context to “India intends”.
The original fact sheet had led to protests by Opposition leaders who posted screenshots of the document on social media, alleging that India had conceded the interests of its farmers under pressure from the Trump administration.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge described the pact as a “PR-wrapped betrayal” and questioned whether it protected India’s economic and strategic interests. He pointed out that the White House fact sheet mentioned conditions not included in the Indo-US Joint Statement issued days earlier.
The original fact sheet released early Tuesday (IST), titled ‘The United States and India Announce Historic Trade Deal (Interim Agreement)’, stated: “India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.”
The reference to “certain pulses” was not part of the joint statement released on February 7 about the interim trade agreement framework.
The revised fact sheet states: “India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.”
The original fact sheet stated that India “commits” to buying more than $500 billion worth of US products. It has been changed to state: “India intends to buy more American products and purchase over $500 billion of U.S. energy, information and communication technology, coal, and other products.”
There are other changes, too.
The original fact sheet had said that India would purchase US energy, information and communication technology, “agricultural”, coal, and other products. The word “agriculture” has been dropped in the revised fact sheet.
The original fact sheet said, “India will remove its digital services taxes and committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade, including rules that prohibit the imposition of customs duties on electronic transmissions.”
The revised version has removed most of this paragraph to state instead that India has “committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules
