India must firmly assess each demand of US through lens of its national priorities: GTRI

India must firmly assess each demand of the US through the lens of its own national priorities, development goals, and cultural values amid continuous pressure of America to amend trade policies, think tank GTRI said on Tuesday. Commenting on the US Trade Representative's (USTR) National Trade Estimate (NTE) Report 2025, the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said that many of the proposed changes in areas like agriculture, digital governance, and public health pose serious risks to India's ability to protect its small farmers, maintain food safety, uphold deeply rooted social norms, and secure its digital future.

The USTR's report highlights several trade and regulatory challenges between the US and India, including issues related to tariffs, non-tariff barriers, intellectual property, services, digital trade, and transparency.

"Most of the issues are repeat of the earlier reports. Few have been resolved and are no longer relevant," GTRI Founder Ajay Srivastava said.


On India's dairy import restrictions, such as the requirement for animals not to be fed meat, blood and internal organs of other animals, block US dairy access, he said that America sees this as "too strict, but imagine eating butter made from the milk of a cow that was fed meat and blood from another cow. India may never allow that."

He also said that for the US, India's digital trade policies are particularly contentious.

The RBI mandates data localisation, requiring foreign payment service providers to store Indian data domestically.

"While the US sees this as a burden on global cloud and payment services, India defends it as necessary for data sovereignty and security. The US keeps on pushing India to dismantle all regulations in the digital arena to allow free flow of data for the US tech firms," Srivastava said.