He had heard of ‘frameworks’ for an agreement. And he’d heard of ‘interim agreements’. But would someone please explain what a ‘framework to an interim agreement’ was? Economist Rathin Roy’s scathing reaction to the India-US joint statement summed up the absurdities of the ‘major deal’ hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tom-tommed by his underlings in government.

The announcement, the timing and the language used left no doubt that India had, as former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg put it, capitulated.

On 2 February, four days before the joint statement was issued, US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the Indian prime minister had agreed to the long-awaited trade deal, that India had agreed to stop buying Russian oil, that India would buy American products ‘at a much higher level’ and purchase much more from the US and Venezuela. In return, the US would reduce ‘reciprocal tariffs’ from 25 to 18 per cent.

This was followed by PM Modi’s tweet welcoming the tariff reduction, stressing his friendship with Trump and declaring that the partnership would unlock ‘immense potential’ for both countries.

The euphoria lasted all of four days. On 6 February, the one-page joint statement (a.k.a. ‘framework to an interim agreement’) was issued from Washington D.C. while India was still asleep. This was most unusual. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) released the statement at 4.20 am IST. Bereft of details as it was, there was enough there to shock trade experts.

Also Read: How the India–US trade deal will deepen the farm crisis tomorrow

While the final trade agreement — a legal document — would take up several thousand pages, the one-pager clearly stated that India had agreed to stop buying Russian oil, had agreed to the US monitoring (emphasis added) its oil purchases and had agreed to reduce import duty on most US products to zero.

‘This disastrous deal will hurt and haunt India for decades to come,’ wrote Garg in the Deccan Herald. There was nothing ‘reciprocal’ about the US imposing 18 per cent tariff on imports from India and India imposing zero tariff on US imports.

Ajay Srivastava, international trade negotiator and founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative, New Delhi, wonders what India could import from the US — it produces little of the industrial and consumer goods India needs. The wording of the joint statement, he says, is worrying. While India has committed to ease non-tariff barriers, the US has made no commitment to dilute laws and regulations to facilitate the entry of goods from India.

While India has surrendered........

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