No India GSP Deal to Come During Trump Trip to India, White House Officials Say
While a small deal could be announced during President Donald Trump's trip early next week to India, senior White House officials say that will be purchase announcements, not a full or partial restoration of India to the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program. While they declined to go into specifics on what the sticking points have been in talks on improving market access, they noted that the complaints of U.S. exporters are well known.
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Dairy exporters and medical device exporters were the stakeholders who argued that India -- at the time, the largest beneficiary of GSP -- should be kicked out of the tariff preference program. “We continue to talk to our Indian colleagues about addressing these barriers,” a White House official said Feb. 21 during a call with reporters. When asked if GSP could be restored later in 2020, she replied, “We will likely have conversation with the prime minister about these concerns and continue the discussion past this visit.”
She pointed to the announcement from India that it would be hiking tariffs this year (see 2001270016 and 2002030041) and said that India seems to be moving toward more protectionism, not less. She said that some products targeted for higher tariffs are important to the U.S., and that India is also diverging from America's preferred policies in e-commerce and digital trade. “We do want to make sure that we get this balance right. We’re not quite there yet,” she said. The U.S. trade representative is not traveling to India with the delegation.