India Finance Chief to Meet Bessent This Week Amid Trade Talks

Nirmala Sitharaman. Photo by Dhiraj Singh /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington this week, as the two nations inch closer to sealing a trade pact later this year.

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Sitharaman, a close aide of Indian leader Narendra Modi, is in the US for a nearly week-long trip to participate in the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Her trip coincides with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to India, where he is slated to meet the prime minister. 

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These travels come at a time when New Delhi is rushing to finalize the broad contours of the bilateral trade deal during the 90-day pause on higher duties. 

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“We are one of the countries that actively engaged with the new administration to see how best we can have a bilateral trade agreement done,” Sitharaman said on Sunday during her interaction with Indian diaspora in San Francisco. 

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The finance minister said that India is engaging with the US to seek reprieve from reciprocal tariffs and bolster trade ties. “The keenness with which we are engaging with the US administration” makes India “hopeful” that the first tranche of a pact will be achieved by fall this year, she said.

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India’s chief negotiator for the trade talks will also visit the US this week to hold in-person meetings. Virtual talks on the trade deal started earlier this month. 

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India and the US have a “special relationship,” the minister said, adding the South Asian country’s policies will help the two nation’s build deeper defense ties. It is “an action-related relationship.”

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Even though Modi and Trump share close personal ties, the US President is threatening to increase the 10% tariffs on Indian exports to 26% if no deal is reached by the end of the 90-day pause.

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In the last few months, India has slashed import duties on American products like Harley-Davidson Inc. motorbikes and bourbon whiskey. It has also pledged to tear down its trade barriers and buy more American energy and defense goods. 

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Global Headwinds

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Sitharaman on Sunday said that Asia’s third-largest economy can withstand global uncertainties because of its strong growth and good governance. 

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“Uncertainty has existed in the past but not at this scale, this frequency and intensity,” she said. However, reforms taken in the last decade under Modi will give India the ability to face the coming challenges. 

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While India’s central bank expects the economy to expand at 6.5% for the current fiscal year that started April 1, banks like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group have pruned the growth forecast to 6.1%, citing the impact of trade shifts on external demand. 

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