Most of India-US trade deal issues sorted, last stretch of concerns being discussed: Jaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that India and the US have sorted out the bulk of the issues, including tariff lines, related to the proposed trade deal, which could be sealed “soon” as talks continue to resolve the “last stretch” of concerns.

Speaking at the HT Leadership Summit, Jaishankar said that India’s border with China has become “more alive” and requires a much greater commitment of Indian troops on a sustained basis, and pointed to the upgrade in the border infrastructure.

In his first comments on the US mid-term polls, Jaishankar said that there is a bipartisan political “consensus” in the US on the defence, security and technology relationship with India.

He also said that the US-China competition is a “big part” of the global volatility, but added that many other factors are also at play, triggering the overall changes in the global landscape.

Jaishankar’s comments come days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the ASEAN and East Asia summits in Manila, Philippines, on November 16-17, and Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China’s tech hub of Shenzhen. Modi is also expected to visit the US for the G20 leaders’ summit on December 14-15.

Jaishankar said the trade deal negotiations are approaching the “finishing line”, adding that many of the remaining issues are “not so much at our end” and that more changes have occurred on the American side.

“Well, it’s certainly our hope, and in many ways anticipation, that we are at the last stretch. That’s not a secret,” he said, responding to questions on the talks. “For us, the key is that we want a trade deal which is beneficial… balanced and which would give us a comparative advantage over groups of comparable economies. That is really what we are looking for, and that is really our expectation of where we would be when the trade deal is done,” he said.

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Stating that the US is India’s biggest market and a trade deal with it would benefit the country, Jaishankar said, “When you look at this big context and say there is the US, our biggest market in a way, the world’s largest economy, obviously having a trade deal with such an economy would benefit us. For the US, President Trump is obviously looking to do a whole set of bilateral deals to improve markets for himself. Now, the challenge is to find a landing point.”

“I think this is not something which could have been done quickly and magically with some sort of bold thinking and rapid movement, because these are very serious issues; people’s jobs and people’s lives are at stake. If you are serious, you go tariff line by tariff line. That takes time. Now we’ve done it the painstaking way. Not everybody has had the patience or frankly the understanding to bear with it. But I think having put in that effort, we have now reached almost the finishing line. I think bear with it and hopefully we’ll get it,” he said.

On the border infrastructure on the India-China border, he said, “Just think about the last few years. How often do you now read — a new tunnel has been built, some new bridge has been built, another airfield has been commissioned. You’re getting this news with greater and greater frequency…What has happened today is that the border with China has become more alive in a way. It has required a much greater commitment of troops on a sustained basis.” “The fact is that the work we had already done allowed that kind of numbers to be deployed out there, and the work we continue to do will maintain those numbers,” he added.

“I would say when it comes to the border, I would honestly make this point, and I think there’s a lot of data and evidence to back it up, which is that the border infrastructure was really neglected till about a decade ago. I mean, people spoke about it, people drew up plans,” Jaishankar said.

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“If you actually go on the ground and see year-by-year how many kilometres of roads, what was the tunnelling, what was the positioning, I think anybody, and certainly anybody associated with the armed forces dealing with that sector knows the truth,” he said.

Jaishankar added: “It’s really been in the last decade that that kind of attention, resources, and policy push has been given.” The external affairs minister said India’s capability to “deploy” its troops on that border has seen “a very marked” improvement.

On the impact of the US mid-term polls, he said, “I’m normally chary about commenting on the domestic politics of other countries in public. That’s your job; it’s not my job. Will it change something? Of course, it would change something. It would change many things.”