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Informist, Friday, Oct. 24, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – India will not let any trading partner dictate its relations with other nations, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said Friday. While the minister did not name any country, the statement comes at a time when the US has imposed a 25% punitive tariff on Indian goods, citing India's high energy imports from Russia.

 

The White House also wants New Delhi to cut its ties with Moscow to sign a trade deal with the US. "I don't think India has ever decided who its friends will be, based on any consideration other than national interests," Goyal said at the Berlin Global Dialogue. "Somebody tells me tomorrow I can't be friends with the European Union, I won't accept that. Or somebody tells me I can't work with Kenya, it is not acceptable to me," Goyal said. 

 

Goyal reiterated that India will not sign an imbalanced trade deal with the US only to avoid tariffs in the short term, as trade deals have long-term consequences. "We don't do deals in a hurry," Goyal said.

 

Besides the US, Goyal also talked about the European Union's safeguard duty and climate-related trade regulations like the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and norms on deforestation products. "I think this is a kind of double standard that, on one hand you (EU) are talking about multilateralism, you are talking of free markets... and at the end of the day you say you have capacity in steel, and you have to protect your steel industry so you won't take steel from even those who do not engage on unfair trade practices," Goyal said.

 

Under the proposed deforestation regulations, effective 2026, products exported to the EU will have to meet rules relating to the land on which they were produced. Exporters will have to ensure that the land has not been subjected to deforestation or forest degradation since Dec. 31, 2020. Under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, those exporting goods to the EU have to report the carbon content of the commodity, which will determine the tax on it. The carbon tax collection is expected to begin in 2026.

 

"Because of all these regulations, I suspect Europe will have an existential problem for their businesses," Goyal said. "Their infrastructure will get costlier, their automobiles and planes will be costlier, their cost of living will be difficult to manage, and they will be living in a cocoon, while other trading partners will be trading around the world with each other."  End

 

 

Reported by Krity Ambey

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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