US Revises India Trade Deal Factsheet, Drops Pulses Tariff Demand

MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during the weekly media briefing that India and the United States had agreed to a joint statement on the framework for an Interim Agreement on reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade.

"This was issued on 7th February 2026. The joint statement is the framework and remains the basis of our mutual understanding in this matter. Both sides will now work towards implementing this framework and finalising the interim agreement," he said.

The United States has revised the fact sheet of the trade deal with India, making a few changes in the key terms of the agreement in the formal document, which is more closely aligned with what India has been stating. These changes have been incorporated into the factsheet available on the official website of the White House.

The US has removed "pulses" from a list of American products on which it said India will eliminate or reduce tariffs, revising the statement to say "India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods and a wide range of U.S. 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 agriculture chapter of the trade agreement released by India mentioned that pulses remain fully protected as a highly sensitive sector under an exemption category.

Another revision in the factsheet on the trade deal is to include India "intends" to buy more American products and purchase over $500 billion of energy, information and communication technology, coal, and other products from the US.

The earlier US factsheet had stated that India "will purchase over $500 billion of US energy, information and communication technology, agricultural, coal, and other products." This tended to indicate that India has committed to buying products worth this amount.

Another sticky point, which has been scrapped, is the earlier mention that India will "remove its digital services tax".

In the earlier factsheet, the White House had said: "India will remove its digital services taxes and has 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 only says: "India committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade."

The Narendra Modi government has stated that it had stood firm in protecting the interests of Indian farmers in any trade deal. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has repeatedly said that sensitive agricultural products such as dairy and poultry were kept out of the ambit of the negotiations.

- IANS