India sees “urgency” in finalising US, UK, EU trade pacts: S. Jaishankar-OxBig News Network

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar speaks during the Global Technology Summit, in New Delhi. Courtesy: X/@DrSJaishankar

The United States’ recent tariffs have “focused our minds on the need for correcting a certain skewed nature of our openness to the global economy,” External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Friday (April 11, 2025), calling for growing partnerships with Western economies in engaging in free trade. 

“Many of us have argued that our complementary partners are in the West, where real growth is possible, where they’re more open, with market economies, contractual underpinnings, and are much more competitive than the economies to our east,” Mr. Jaishankar added. 

“I’d argue, we have an opportunity today … if we can focus on these three big [free trade agreement] negotiations, with the US, the European Union and the U.K., if these work out for us this year, we’d be in a different situation.” Mr. Jaishankar was speaking at Carnegie India’s annual Global Technology Summit. India is “geared up for a high degree of urgency” in finalising these deals, Mr. Jaishankar said, contrasting the fervour with past reluctance. 

Advancing pacts

On bi- and multilateral collaboration frameworks like the US–India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (ICET), Mr. Jaishankar said that domestic follow-through was important. “My reality check on the partnerships would be that you have to move both the regulatory system and the real economy in step with each other,” he said. 

“Often we would have discussions, but if they were not followed through by projects, then those discussions don’t have the seriousness the other party would have given,” he added.

MAGA, atmanirbharta

Responding to a question on whether the Make America Great Again movement was in tension with Indian self-sufficiency, Mr. Jaishankar said, “I don’t see a contradiction because anybody who’s been objective about the direction of the world would have seen the trend lines; this didn’t come out of the blue.” 

Pointing to developments like Brexit and other rejections of globalisation, he said, “There was a different debate building under this complacency of globalisation,” and that even in India, “there was deep anger about the kind of dumping [of goods at low cost] taking place and the impact it’s had on small and medium enterprises.”