New York/Washington: The White House has removed “pulses” from a list of American products on which it said India will eliminate or reduce tariffs, in a revised fact sheet issued on the interim trade deal.
On Monday, the White House issued a fact sheet on ‘The United States and India Announce Historic Trade Deal (Interim Agreement),’ days after India and the US announced in a joint statement the framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade.
An initial version of the fact sheet had highlighted key terms of the agreement including, that 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, red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, “certain pulses”, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.
First, the reference to “certain pulses” in the list of US agricultural products that India would eliminate or reduce tariffs on was removed. The narrower form of the same was “additional products.”
Second, the phrasing around India’s large-scale procurement of American products was softened in an intermediate revision, shifting from “has committed to buy” to “intends to buy” more than USD 500 billion worth of US goods across sectors such as energy, information and communication technology, agriculture, and coal.
In the same update, the term “agricultural” was also removed.
Third, the earlier statement that mentioned “India will remove its digital services taxes” was done away with. The mention of “rules that prohibit the imposition of customs duties on electronic transmissions” was also removed.
White House’s initial fact sheet on India-US trade deal.
The White House has described the interim deal as a stepping stone toward a full Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), saying that in the coming weeks both sides would work toward finalising the arrangement while continuing negotiations on services, investment, labour, and government procurement.
The Fact Sheet, titled “The United States and India Announce Historic Trade Deal (Interim Agreement)”, earlier mentioned that India would eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and on a wide range of agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and pulses.
It further asserted that India “has committed to buy more American products and purchase over USD 500 billion” in US energy, technology, agricultural, coal and other items.
Under a section labelled “Prosperous Path Forward,” the document said US President Donald Trump was advancing American economic interests by lowering tariff and non-tariff barriers and improving market access for exporters.
The fact sheet also mentioned that India imposed high tariffs on US goods, averaging 37 per cent on agricultural items and exceeding 100 per cent on some automobiles, and maintained restrictive non-tariff measures.
It added that the two countries would keep negotiating on customs facilitation, intellectual property, digital trade rules, labour and the environment, while strengthening supply-chain resilience and technology cooperation.
The statement followed a call between Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after which both leaders endorsed the interim framework and reiterated their intent to pursue a broader BTA.
