India-US trade deal: White House removes 'pulses', gives breather on $500 billion clause

NEW DELHI: A day after releasing a fact sheet on the trade deal with India, the White House revised it to say that India "intends" to buy more than $500 billion of US products, instead of having "committed" to: a substitution which will help PM Modi govt rebut the charge that it had given in to Trump administration's tariff aggression.

After the revision, agricultural products stand excluded from the list of "committed" shipments, while the claim in the original factsheet posted on Tuesday that India agreed to "remove" digital services tax, has also been dropped. In another significant change, Trump administration removed "certain pulses" from the list of agricultural goods on which India had agreed to eliminate or reduce tariffs.


The new fact sheet is more aligned with the position stated by the govt during its media interactions after the announcement of the deal.

Dropping pulses reference to help govt combat opposition attack
Govt has maintained that it has agreed to limited concessions on agricultural imports from the US, while ensuring that sensitive items such as cereals and dairy products are not included. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal had listed out some pulses that were not part of the deal during his press conference on Saturday.

The dropping of the reference to "certain pulses" will help govt combat any attack from opposition and farmer groups, which have called a nationwide strike on Thursday. There are also concerns over dried distillers' grains (DDGs) and red sorghum for animal feed being part of the list on which govt will offer concessions. Goyal had said that the quantity offered for DDGs was a fraction of what is consumed in India and was included following demands from industry.

Though the White House put out its revised fact sheet, it did not extend any explanation for editing the text.

The new factsheet is more aligned with the position stated by govt during its media interactions after the announcement of the trade deal.