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19-02-2026
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: A team of Indian officials will visit the US next week to finalize the legal text for an interim trade agreement, which is likely to be signed in March, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said on Monday (February 16, 2026).
The visit is likely to start on February 23.
Earlier this month, India and the US released a joint statement to announce that a framework for an interim trade agreement has been finalized.
“The joint statement lays down the contours of the deal. Now, the contours of the deal have to be translated into a legal agreement, which will be signed between the two sides,” he told reporters in New Delhi.
Both sides are engaged in finalizing that legal agreement, and virtual talks are going on for that.
“Next week, (India’s) chief negotiator Darpan Jain will be leading a delegation to the US to finalize the legal (pact) to work towards the legal agreement. That work will carry on next week in Washington and, if need be, thereafter in July and March,” Agrawal said.
Jain is the joint secretary in the Commerce Ministry.
The secretary said that there is an effort to close and sign the deal in March, “but I have not put a deadline on it”.
“Because legal agreement finalization also has certain intricacies, which both sides will have to resolve,” he said.
Under the interim trade pact, both sides would extend duty concessions to each other on a number of goods traded between them.
The US has announced that it will reduce the reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods from 25% to 18%. It has already eliminated the 25% punitive tariffs on India for buying Russian crude oil.
Agrawal said that the US is working on reducing the reciprocal tariffs from 25% to 18%.
“I am told they are processing it. It should be done fast,” he said, adding that “our expectation is that it should be done this week but, in case it is not done, the team is there next week, and we can pursue and see why it is taking time”.
Normally, the agreement is that 18 per cent will be done in the interim pact, and the remaining tariff lines, wherever reciprocal tariffs are expected to go down to zero, that will only be done after the legal agreement is signed, he said and “from our side also, any reduction in tariff, any market access, preferential market access will be extended only after the legal agreement is signed,” the secretary said.
On cotton, he said India imports around 200-250 million dollars of US cotton on average and “the variety being imported, I presume, is the same variety which we get the preferential market access,” he added.
India has “committed” to stop buying Russian oil, and already taken “significant steps” towards it, said US President Donald Trump, rescinding the 25% punitive tariffs imposed on India in August 2025. The startling claim, which was not denied by the government on Saturday (February 7, 2026), was made in an executive order issued simultaneously with the India-US joint statement on an interim trade agreement framework, and appeared to be a condition for the removal of the punitive tariffs.
Trump also said the tariffs would return if India “resumes” oil imports from Russia, and that India would buy US energy, which former Indian diplomats criticized, calling it “plain bullying” by a “hegemonic America”.
