Industry, govt discuss market access issues in US ahead of Goyal’s visit

New Delhi: The commerce department has sought information from exporters on any products which the US doesn’t produce but imports from India where New Delhi could push for greater market access. At a meeting on India-US trade performance Tuesday, exporters and industry flagged issues such as lower volumes of orders being placed by American customers and US customs asking their importers details on products using forced labour. The meeting comes ahead of commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal’s visit to the US later this month to attend the G20 Trade Ministers’ Meeting.

The meeting will be held from September 30 to October 1 under the US presidency of the G20. Goyal's visit assumes significance as India and the US continue negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement (BTA).

“There was concern on the US’ Section 301 investigation on excess capacity and the legislation on 100% tariff for buying Russian oil. The government wants to know which sectors are impacted by American actions,” said an industry representative who participated in the meeting, adding that there is some impact on leather and footwear, textiles, marine and polished diamonds.


An exporter said that American buyers are not placing big orders but are diversifying their sources of imports due to the prevailing tariff uncertainties.

Industry also flagged concerns over safeguard measures imposed by the US on quartz surface products and urged the commerce and industry ministry to take up the matter with American authorities.

Earlier, the minister said the first tranche of the BTA would come into force as soon as Washington ensured that India secured a comparative advantage over its competitors.

The US imposed a 10% tariff on India under a Section 301 probe on forced labour and is also in the process of enacting a legislation that would see tariffs of up to 100% imposed on India among five countries for being the top importers of Russian oil and gas.

Washington has also named India with 40 other countries as being part of a “shadow trans-shipment network” that allegedly allows Chinese goods to bypass American tariffs and announced plans to deploy AI to identify and crack down on such shipments.

India’s goods exports to the US fell 0.06% year-on-year to $25.46 billion in the first quarter of FY27, while imports rose 23.82% to $16.6 billion.