India-US trade talks in final stretch; more changes at American end: Jaishankar

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2026, the external affairs minister said the bulk of issues are sorted and India is seeking a pact that gives it a comparative edge over peer economies.

New Delhi: India and the US are in the last stretch of finalizing their highly anticipated trade deal, India's external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2026, Jaishankar said there are few outstanding concerns on New Delhi’s end, and that most of the recent changes have come from the American side.

“We really have the bulk of the issues sorted out. There are the last stretch of issues. And in many cases, these concerns are not so much at our end because the changes have been more at the American end than ours. So, the hope is that we should close it out soon.”

He noted that India wants a trade deal which, apart from being mutually beneficial, gives it a comparative advantage over comparable economies.

Pointing out that India missed the "manufacturing bus" between the 1960s and 1990s, Jaishankar said the production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes are aimed at turning the country into a manufacturing hub while building capabilities in new-age technologies.

"The PLI schemes are designed to kick-start these different sectors. What have we missed out on, which we now need to catch up, and therefore, you're prepared to give incentives for industry to respond and set up businesses. So, we'll have to do the orthodox manufacturing. We have to support our small and medium enterprises. We have to become economically competitive, which means much better infrastructure and logistics. We have to improve our talent, which means more educational institutions, more skills," he said.

"But we'll also have to invest, say, in semiconductors. We'll have to invest in upgrading life sciences. We'll have to look at preparing for the AI era. All of this will have to address multiple levels in order to actually navigate those problems," he added.

He said that the vision of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, or the call for ‘make in India’, or ‘innovate in India’ are the building blocks of a foreign policy.

Multipolar world order

Speaking on the emerging world order, Jaishankar said it will be multipolar—marked by sharper competition and greater assertion, which inherently brings more instability. The external affairs minister added that India is expected to play a much stronger role and wield greater influence in this new order.

"The new order is not going to come out of the blue. It will be an evolution of the current order. And we will have a transition, and we are in that transition phase... We hope and we reasonably expect that the new order, for example, will have a much stronger role of India or much stronger influence by India… I think the general acceptance is that the new order will be more multipolar, that there will be many more centers of autonomous decision-making," he said.

About the Author

Rituraj Baruah is a special correspondent covering energy, housing, urban affairs, heavy industries and small businesses at Mint. He has reported on diverse sectors over the last eight years including, commodities and stocks market, insolvency and real estate; with previous stints at Cogencis Information Services, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) and Inc42.