India-U.S. trade deal has to respect New Delhi’s ‘red lines’; efforts underway to address points: Jaishankar

Any trade deal between India and the U.S. has to respect New Delhi’s “red lines” and efforts are underway to discover a “landing ground”, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar mentioned on Sunday (October 5, 2025) amid pressure in ties between the 2 nations over Washington’s coverage on tariff.

In an interactive session at an occasion, Mr. Jaishankar acknowledged having points between India and the U.S. and that lots of them are linked to the shortcoming to agency up the proposed trade deal.

The External Affairs Minister mentioned an understanding on trade between the 2 sides was obligatory because the U.S. is the world’s largest market however on the similar time famous that India’s purple strains must be revered.

“We have today issues with the United States. A big part of it is the fact that we have not arrived at a landing ground for our trade discussions, and the inability so far to reach there has led to a certain tariff being levied on India,” he mentioned.

Mr. Jaishankar was talking on the dialogue on the theme ‘Shaping Foreign Policy in Turbulent Times’ on the Kautilya Economic Enclave.

“In addition, there is a second tariff which we have publicly said we regard as very unfair, which has picked on us for sourcing energy from Russia when there are other countries that have done so, including countries that right now have a far more antagonistic relationship with Russia than we do,” he mentioned.

The relations between New Delhi and Washington have been reeling below extreme stress after U.S. President Trump doubled tariffs on Indian items to a whopping 50% together with a 25% extra duties for India’s buy of Russian crude oil.

India described the U.S. motion as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.

“Whatever happens at the end of the day, there has got to be a trade understanding with the U.S… because it is the world’s largest market but also because much of the world has reached those understandings,” Mr. Jaishankar mentioned.

“But it has to be an understanding where our bottom lines, our red lines are respected. In any agreement, there are things you can negotiate and there are things you can’t,” he mentioned.

Mr. Jaishankar mentioned India is fairly clear about its strategy.

“I think we are pretty clear about that. We have to find that landing ground and that’s been the conversation which has been going on since March,” he mentioned.

India and the U.S. have lately resumed negotiations for the proposed trade deal after a quick hiatus of some weeks.

The EAM additionally instructed that the pressure within the relations has not been impacting each dimension of the engagement.

“There are problems, there are issues, nobody is in denial of it. Those issues need to be negotiated and discussed and resolved, which is exactly what we are trying to do,” he mentioned.

At the identical time, he added: “I would really hesitate to read very much more into it than the issues themselves. I think I also want to say a large part of the relationship is actually continuing either as business as usual or in fact in some cases even doing more than it was doing before.”