Indian minister to visit US on Sept.22 for trade talks

India’s Trade Minister Piyush Goyal will visit Washington on September 22 to accelerate talks on a long-pending trade deal, following recent progress in negotiations resumed last week.

“The delegation plans to take forward the discussions with a view to achieve early conclusion of a mutually beneficial trade agreement,” an official statement said on Saturday.

On September 16, a US delegation led by Brendan Lynch, Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia, met Indian trade officials headed by Chief Negotiator Rajesh Agrawal in New Delhi.

Trade discussions with US officials on Tuesday were “positive” and “forward-looking”, New Delhi said, after US President Donald Trump struck a more conciliatory tone following punitive tariffs on India over its Russian oil purchases.

But it was not immediately clear whether New Delhi would discuss the Trump administration’s H1B visa fee hike and the demand to cut Russian oil purchases, or open its agriculture and dairy sector for US companies, a major demand from Washington.

The Trump administration on Friday issued an executive order requiring companies to pay a $100,000 per year fee for an H1B visa, set to take effect from Saturday midnight, in a move that India said would hit its huge IT services industry.

Trump last month imposed a 25% punitive levy on Indian imports from August 27, doubling overall tariffs to 50%, as part of Washington’s pressure campaign on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

A planned US delegation visit to New Delhi from August 25-29 was cancelled after talks stalled, with India resisting US demands to open its vast farm and dairy markets.

India’s exports to the US fell to $6.86 billion in August from $8.01 billion in July, trade ministry data showed on Monday.

Exporters have warned the full impact of higher tariffs would be felt from September, once the new duties took effect.

China stuck to its stance TikTok: China stuck to its stance on the future of TikTok in the US on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump said a deal to switch short video app TikTok to US-controlled ownership was progressing.

“China’s position on TikTok is clear: The Chinese government respects the wishes of the enterprise, and welcomes it to carry out commercial negotiations in accordance with market rules to reach a solution compliant with China’s laws and regulations, and strikes a balance of interests,” China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement, reiterating a position it has maintained over the past week. Key questions remain about the potential US/China deal after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a call on Friday.

They include the precise ownership structure of TikTok, how much control China will retain over the app’s inner workings, and what Beijing gets from backing down and letting the US muscle in on one of China’s most successful companies.

Progress over the future of the social media app - which has 170 million US users - is seen key to unlocking concessions in other areas - from airplanes to soybeans - as the world’s two largest economies chart a path beyond their current tariff truce.

“It is hoped that the US side will work towards the same goal as China, earnestly fulfil its corresponding commitments, and provide an open, fair, equitable and non-discriminatory business environment for the continued operation of Chinese enterprises in the US, including TikTok,” the Commerce Ministry statement added.

Since a framework deal was struck in Madrid earlier this week, Chinese officials and state media have called it a “win-win”, promising to review TikTok’s technology exports and intellectual property licensing.

The framework deal was one hurdle Trump needed to clear to keep TikTok open. US Congress had originally ordered the app to be shut down for US users by January 2025 if its US assets were not sold by Chinese owner ByteDance.

He Yadong, a spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry, reiterated China’s hope that the US reduce the barriers to trade facing Chinese firms, when asked what Beijing had got out of the Madrid deal during a news conference on Thursday.

Reuters