India, US officials should continue trade deal talks: Exporters

New Delhi, Jan 9 (PTI) India and US officials should sit across tables and resolve issues to conclude a mutually beneficial trade agreement, according to exporters.

They said that 50 per cent tariffs slapped by the US on Indian goods are already hurting bilateral trade, and any plan to further raise these duties will hit New Delhi's exports to Washington badly.

"Both sides should continue their talks for the agreement," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President SC Ralhan said.

A leather sector exporter said that the US is a key market for India and an early conclusion of a trade agreement will help boost the country's exports.

"Though we are exploring new markets, the US is a key market," the exporter said.

Another exporter from the engineering sector said that a bilateral trade agreement between the two countries will help reduce uncertainties at the trade front.

Think tank GTRI said that the India-US trade impasse reflects hard policy choices rather than missed phone calls.

"Framing the delay as a matter of personal diplomacy may offer a convenient narrative, but it obscures the substantive disagreements that both sides have yet to resolve and risks trivialising one of the most consequential trade relationships in the global economy," Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) founder Ajay Srivastava said.

India on Friday rejected as "inaccurate" US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's remarks that a proposed trade deal between the two countries couldn't be sealed last year, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not make a telephone call to President Donald Trump.

New Delhi also asserted that it remained interested in concluding a "mutually beneficial" trade deal between the two "complementary economies" and noted that Modi and Trump held telephonic conversations on eight occasions in 2025, covering different aspects of ties.

Lutnick, in a podcast, said that India had been given "three Fridays" to seal the trade agreement, and that Modi had to call Trump to close it.

The fresh row between the two sides came as their relations passed through possibly the worst phase in the last two decades.

In his controversial comments in an interview on Thursday, Lutnick detailed how the India-US trade deal has not happened till now. PTI RR BAL BAL