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Informist, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Indian National Congress Tuesday slammed the Narendra Modi government for entering into what it termed a "trap deal" with the US after the White House released a "fact sheet" on the agreement. The leading opposition party said the country's farmers had been stabbed in the back.

 

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said the fact sheet mentions "certain pulses" in the list of products India will be importing from the US. This, he pointed out, was not mentioned in the India-US joint statement issued Friday.

 

"For the first time in India's history, a government has completely opened our agriculture to foreign goods," Kharge wrote on the social media platform X. "Now we know what 'additional products' actually meant in the joint statement agreed by the Modi government."

 

He said the trade deal calls for importing food and agricultural products, including distiller's dried grains with solubles and red sorghum for animal feed, but if Indian cattle consume this mostly genetically modified feed, it will "alter the breed of our cattle and the taste of our milk".

 

"Full-page ads are being published in newspapers, by forcing Amul to whitewash this concession, but the truth is that the Modi government had not approved genetically modified feed since 2017, and now suddenly approves it," he said. Kharge claimed that 20 million dairy farmers will suffer the consequences.

 

The leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha also criticised the government's failure to secure a deal like Bangladesh, which will face zero tariff on apparel exported to the US made using American cotton. By comparison, with 18% duty, Indian apparel and garments will be costlier for buyers in the US, he said, terming it a "lethal double whammy" for the Indian cotton and garments industry. India is a major supplier of yarn to Bangladesh. However, with Dhaka sourcing some of its yarn from the US now, Indian exports to the neighbouring country may also take a hit.

 

Kharge also questioned why the government had agreed to an "erosion of India's sovereignty" on the purchase of crude oil from Russia, because the fact sheet underlines India's commitment to stop purchasing Russian oil as a condition for the removal of the 25% penal tariff. "Is this a victory or a public relations-wrapped betrayal that sacrifices India's strategic national interests and export engine at the altar of Epstein files?" Kharge wrote.  End

 

Reported by Asim Khan

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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