The United States has revised the fact sheet of the trade deal with India, making a few changes in the key terms of agreement in the formal document. The world's biggest economy has removed "pulses" from a list of American products on which it said India will eliminate or reduce tariffs, revising the statement to say "India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods and a wide range of U.S. food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products."The agriculture chapter of the trade agreement released by India mentioned that pulses remain fully protected as a highly-sensitive sector under an Exemption category.The White House has also revised the India-US trade deal fact sheet to say that India "intends" to buy more American products and purchase over $500 billion of energy, information and communication technology, coal, and other products from the US.Also read: India-US Trade Deal Fact Sheet: Beyond pulses and 'intent', there's another big change you may have missedIt had earlier said India "will purchase over $500 billion of U.S. energy, information and communication technology, agricultural, coal, and other products."The joint statement issued last week had also maintained that “India intends to purchase $500 billion of US energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal over the next 5 years.”The trade deal, announced independently by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, was later elaborated by both sides through a joint statement and fact sheet that listed the details of tariff measures and economic cooperation between the two nations.Another notable feature of the joint statement released on February 7 was the mention of an "interim agreement" implying that the countries are still negotiating a broader U.S.-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).Trump slashed the 25% reciprocal tariff on India to 18%, also removing the additional 25% which was imposed citing New Delhi's purchase of Russian oil.Also read: India-US trade deal: Farmers may get cover as tariffs on certain American agri-related products to ease over 10 yearsWait, more revisions aheadAnother revision to the fact sheet included a change in the digital services tax imposed by India. The White House earlier stated that "India will remove its digital services taxes" and "committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade."However, in the current version, America has dropped the claim "India will remove its digital services taxes" and retains only that "India committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules."As per the joint statement, the trade partners committed to address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade and to set a clear pathway to achieve robust, ambitious, and mutually beneficial digital trade rules as part of the BTA.Agriculture: The key component of the fine printUnder the agreement, US and India have committed to provide each other preferential market access in sectors of respective interest on a sustained basis.The Indian government has said that tariffs on imports of several agricultural and intermediate products from America will be phased out over a period of up to 10 years under the pact, which will provide adequate adjustment space for domestic players.Under the agriculture chapter of the agreement, India revealed that this long transition period applies to products used by India’s food processing industry, which are sourced from multiple countries."Phased elimination of tariffs over up to ten years has been adopted for certain intermediate products used by India’s food processing industry and sourced from multiple countries. These include albumins; certain oils such as coconut oil, castor oil and cotton seed oil; hoofmeal; lard; stearin; modified starches; peptones and their derivatives; and plants and parts of plants etc. This extended timeline provides adequate adjustment space for domestic stakeholders," the Press Information Bureau said.Also read: India-US tariff deal is a 'humiliating' cave-in: Swaminathan AiyarIn an interview with ET, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that the agreement protects all of India's sensitive interests and provides huge opportunities for our labour-intensive sectors."Our priority has been to safeguard farmers and vulnerable sectors even as we expand trade," he said in an address to the parliament last week.During a press briefing, Goyal said that the trade deal with US is a ‘farmers-first’ agreement. “We all know how PM Modi works for farmers and is worried about them. This is a farmers-first deal for India, protecting agriculture, dairy, and other key sectors," he said.America's take on agri-dealFollowing formal announcements of the US-India trade agreement by PM Modi and Trump, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooker Rollings thanked Trump for taking care of American farmers. In a post on X, he said that the deal will help export more American farm products to India’s massive market, lifting prices and pumping cash into rural America.
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