India-US Trade Deal May Be Sealed by December G20 Summit, Says Former US Diplomat

India and the United States are hoping to conclude the first phase of their long-pending bilateral trade agreement by the G20 Leaders' Summit in Florida on December 14-15, according to former senior US diplomat Nisha Biswal, who said negotiations were progressing despite several complicated issues.

Biswal, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said there was a desire in both countries to finalise the agreement before the summit, which will be chaired by US President Donald Trump.

"By all expectations, I think that there's a desire to try to conclude the phase one deal, perhaps by the G20," she told PTI in an interview.

India and the US had finalised a framework for the first phase of the trade agreement in February 2026, following a phone conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump. However, changes in the US tariff structure triggered fresh negotiations, delaying the final agreement.

Biswal described the discussions as complicated, pointing to differences over market access and India's demand for a comparative advantage over competing countries in sectors such as textiles.

She said Washington faced the challenge of addressing India's demands while ensuring that any concessions remained within the framework of its existing trade policy tools.

Highlighting the complexity of negotiations, Biswal said both countries had extraordinarily complex economies and that reaching an agreement required resolving several difficult issues rather than settling for a quick deal.

She also described India-US relations under Trump's second presidential term, which began in 2025, as a mixed bag but said ties had stabilised during 2026 as trade negotiations gathered momentum.

According to her, Washington took note of India's diplomatic engagement with China and Russia during Prime Minister Modi's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin last year.

India's trade agreement with the European Union also attracted attention in Washington, she said, citing positive remarks by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Trump had said on October 20 that Washington and New Delhi were "pretty close" to reaching a trade agreement, expressing confidence that a deal would be reached.

Meanwhile, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that India had negotiated a strong set of outcomes and would secure one of the "best" trade deals with the US in every respect.