United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday said Washington was “very close” to finalising a trade deal with India, adding that it was one of the things taken into consideration when making decisions on national security waivers.
So that’s one of the things we take into consideration when the President makes a decision about national security waivers and things of that nature,” Rubio said while speaking to reporters in Samarkant, Uzbekistan. “We’re trying to finalize a trade deal with India right now. We’re very close to doing that.
The US Secretary of State is scheduled to travel to India on Tuesday, and will hold a meeting with external affairs minister S Jaishankar in Mumbai.
The law, which has been put on hold, would have imposed tariffs of up to 100 per cent on top five purchasers of Russian crude oil or gas, which included India. US President Donald Trump had waived several sanctions related to Russian energy which were set to take effect under the Lindsey O. To be sure, the secondary sanctions have just been deferred, leaving Trump free to use the law against these countries whenever he chooses. “Geography is real. For some countries, it’s very difficult to acquire energy from alternative sources. “The US bilateral trade agreement’s first tranche has been finalised.
Rubio said America has “had to waive sanctions over the past few months” owing to the global supply situation and “the impact it was having on other countries. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act citing “national security” reasons. He further said it was harder for some countries to diversify imports owing to geographical constraints. That’s not an excuse, but all of that has to be balanced when you make foreign policy,” the US Secretary of State said. Union minister Piyush Goyal had, last week, said the first tranche of India-US bilateral trade agreement is ready and legal drafting is currently under process. It’s going through the final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalize that soon and operationalise it once we get a comparable or competitive advantage over our peer countries,” he said.
