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Informist, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Indian National Congress Saturday slammed the Narendra Modi government for reaching an interim trade framework with the US which is heavily skewed in the latter's favour. Party leader Pawan Khera said the deal would be particularly damaging for Indian farmers and the farming sector, and that the Congress party would protest against it.

 

Khera alleged that the terms of the agreement were being dictated by the US and were only being announced here by Indian ministers.

 

India and the US early Saturday released a joint statement regarding a framework for an interim trade agreement that defined the contours of a bilateral trade engagement between the two countries. Subsequently, the US President issued an executive order removing 25% punitive tariffs on Indian exports from Saturday.

 

"The devil is in the details that the government is hiding," Khera said, referring to Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal's statement wherein he mentioned a few items from the agricultural and dairy sectors that have been kept out of the agreed import list.

 

"This government had brought the three farm laws claiming that those were good for the farmers. But our farmers knew the truth, and that is why they came out against those laws. The same goes with this deal," Khera told media persons here. He demanded to know whether the $500 billion imports from the US over the next five years will not create a trade deficit for India.

 

Separately, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said in its defence of the deal, the Modi government is acting "too clever by half". "The joint statement has something called 'additional products', which are not specified. This is far too open-ended and shows something is being hidden", Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.

 

"Second, the statement says that India has agreed 'to address long-standing barriers to the trade in US food and agricultural products'. What does this mean if not removal of restrictions on genetically modified crops and dairy products?" he added.

 

The former Union Minister further said that the agreement is also granting "backdoor entry" to the genetically modified corn. "Much is being made on how cheaper imports of 'distillers dried grains with solubles' from America will benefit India. But DDGS is derived from GM corn."

 

He said that hundreds of thousands of soybean farmers in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan will be hit by imports of distillers dried grains with solubles and soybean oil.

 

The US executive order rolling back 25% extra punitive tariff also underlined that the US authorities will monitor if India resumes "directly or indirectly" importing Russian oil, and if it does, the US President may take "additional action", including the reimposition of the additional 25% duty on imports from India. End

 

US$1 = INR 90.66

 

Reported by Asim Khan

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

 

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