India Offers Major Tariff Cut to Seal Trade Deal with Trump: Report
India has proposed cutting its tariff gap with the United States by nearly two-thirds — reducing it from around 13% to under 4% — in an effort to secure an exemption from President Donald Trump’s current and potential tariff hikes, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Both countries are pushing hard to finalize a trade agreement. If accepted, this move would lower the average tariff differential between India and the U.S. by 9 percentage points. This figure is calculated across all goods, without adjusting for trade volume, marking one of the most significant efforts to reduce trade barriers in India, the world’s fifth-largest economy. The U.S. is India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching approximately $129 billion in 2024. Currently, India enjoys a trade surplus of $45.7 billion with the U.S., a key point of discussion in the negotiations. On Thursday, Trump announced his administration’s first “breakthrough deal” with Britain, which reduces ...