Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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The two sides will discuss regulatory changes by India on data localisation, e-commerce and import curbs
Visiting U.S. trade officials will meet Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday, after two days of talks with a “composite delegation” from the Commerce and External Affairs Ministries, the first formal effort to resolve the recent Indo-U.S. trade impasse. “Since India’s election period has now passed, USTR officials are visiting India for relationship building with Indian government counterparts, including introductory meetings,” said a spokesperson for the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The U.S. delegation is led by the Assistant USTR for South and Central Asia, Christopher Wilson, and talks on the Indian side are being led by an Additional Secretary from theCommerce Ministry. On Thursday, the two sides met for “informal” talks, and “comprehensive” formal talks will begin on Friday, officials said. The USTR visit was agreed upon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump when they met in Osaka on the sidelines of the G-20 summit. “Our approach is to engage [with the USTR team] constructively, in a positive manner,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Thursday. “Many of these issues were discussed by PM and President Trump and we look forward to resolving them… many are technical in nature like tariffs, we will have to wait and see how they will be addressed, and what is the outcome of the talks,” he added. The MEA spokesperson declined to comment specifically on which issues were being discussed on Thursday and Friday, including whether the U.S. objections to Chinese telecommunications company Huawei being considered for 5G trials was among them, but said that the “entire gamut of issues related to trade will be on the table.” The two sides are also expected to set a date for a meting between Mr. Goyal and the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in the next few weeks, when trade talks will be formally resumed after they collapsed in November, and the standoff escalated after the U.S. withdrew India’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) trade status this year.
