The government has called the latest India–US trade deal historic. A breakthrough. A sign of India’s rising stature. But history has a habit of whispering inconvenient questions. And when you strip away the celebratory language, the first question that arises is simple: what exactly did India gain?
Because measured calmly, this deal looks less like a triumph of negotiation and more like a reluctant accommodation under pressure.
A Familiar Discomfort
India has been here before. In the mid-1960s, after back-to-back droughts, India found itself dependent on American wheat under the PL-480 “Food for Peace” programme. What was sold as assistance soon became leverage. President Lyndon B. Johnson abandoned long-term commitments and replaced them with the infamous “ship-to-mouth” policy. Grain was released month by month, often delayed without explanation. At any given time, India barely had weeks of food reserves.
Food Was No Longer Aid: It Was Control.
When India criticised US actions in Vietnam, shipments slowed. When global institutions demanded compliance, pressure mounted. In 1966, India was pushed into a sharp rupee devaluation as a condition for continued assistance. It was economically painful and politically humiliating.
That experience produced a national vow. Under Indira Gandhi, India decided it would never again run its economy with a begging bowl. This history can inspire resilience and independence in the audience, reinforcing their confidence in India’s capacity to navigate challenges. That memory matters today.
The present deal: a framework, not a final agreement, highlighting its temporary status and the need for ongoing negotiations, which should make the audience feel cautiously optimistic about India’s strategic patience and long-term resilience.
Fast forward to February 6. India and the United States issued a joint statement announcing a “framework” for an “interim agreement” aimed at reciprocal trade, with a promise of a broader bilateral trade agreement (BTA) to follow.
That wording is essential. This is not a free trade agreement. It is not even a limited trade pact in the conventional sense. It is a holding arrangement, designed to pause escalation rather than transform the relationship.
Negotiations began in February 2025 between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, amid tariff threats and geopolitical friction. Trump’s branding of India as a “tariff king” was not a rhetorical flourish. It translated into action.
By August 2025, Indian exports faced tariffs as high as 50 percent. A further punitive layer was explicitly tied to India’s continued imports of discounted Russian oil. This was a sharp shift from earlier US tolerance of India’s energy pragmatism. Textiles, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals took a direct hit. India’s trade surplus with the US eroded quickly.
This was the pressure point.
What India Conceded
Under the interim framework, India has agreed to reduce tariffs on a range of US products. Agriculture and energy sit at the heart of these concessions.
For Washington, the gains are straightforward. Better access for American agricultural exports. Greater openness to US energy suppliers. A political signal that India is willing to align, even if gradually, with US strategic preferences on Russia.
For India, the story is more complicated.
Tariff reductions may lower input costs for specific industries, but they also expose Indian farmers and producers to competition from heavily subsidised American agriculture. The risks here are structural, not temporary, which should prompt the audience to be vigilant about long-term vulnerabilities.
The energy dimension is even more sensitive. India has not committed to immediately abandoning Russian oil. Still, it has signalled a move toward diversification-yet the deal leaves room for US discretion, which can make the audience feel cautious about long-term autonomy.
India has accepted conditionality. Even if it is softly worded, it exists.
The legal tightrope: MFN and the WTO
Beyond economics lies international law.
If India extends tariff preferences to US goods but not to other trading partners, it risks violating the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle under the World Trade Organisation. This is not hypothetical. China has already begun questioning the MFN-consistency of US-centric trade deals at the World Trade Organisation.
The joint statement’s repeated use of ‘interim agreement’ serves as a legal shield, allowing India to defend itself against WTO MFN challenges under Article XXIV, potentially.
If India and the US notify the WTO of this deal under Article XXIV, India can defend itself against MFN challenges. If they do not, New Delhi should expect uncomfortable questions not just from China but also from other trading partners.
This matters because India has historically positioned itself as a defender of multilateral trade rules, even when the US has shown open indifference to them.
What India Gained: The Narrow Ledger
So what did India actually get?
First, immediate tariff relief. This is the clearest gain. The deal halts further escalation and restores some competitiveness to Indian exports in the US market. For exporters bleeding under punitive duties, this is real and measurable.
Second, breathing space. The interim framework buys time. It prevents a trade war from spiralling while negotiations toward a fuller BTA continue. In a fragmented global trade environment, that stability has value.
Third, strategic insulation. The deal reinforces India’s relevance to Washington at a time when the US is anxious about China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. India’s parallel negotiations with the EU strengthened its hand, even if modestly.
But these gains are defensive. They prevent loss. They do not fundamentally expand India’s economic autonomy.
What India Did Not Gain
India did not secure guaranteed long-term market access. It did not ensure protection for sensitive sectors such as agriculture. It did not remove the shadow of unilateral US discretion over tariffs or energy alignment.
Most importantly, it did not negotiate from a position where it could credibly walk away.
That is the uncomfortable echo from the 1960s.
Then, food was leveraged. Today, it is tariffs and energy. The instruments have changed. The logic has not.
A Deal Shaped by Pressure, Not Parity
The yearlong negotiation process was exhaustive. Six formal rounds, multiple informal consultations, periods of stagnation, and intense backchannel diplomacy kept the talks alive. The US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, played a notable role in bridging gaps. Senior Indian officials ensured trade talks stayed embedded within a broader strategic conversation covering defence, critical minerals, and supply chains.
India negotiated patiently. But patience is not the same as leverage.
The breakthrough followed a familiar transactional script. India signalled alignment. The US offered relief. That is not a partnership between equals. It is bargaining under asymmetry.
The Unresolved Future
This deal is explicitly preliminary. Intellectual property, labour standards, digital trade, and deeper agricultural access remain unresolved. These are precisely the areas where US demands tend to be most intrusive and politically sensitive in India.
A fuller BTA, if it materialises, will test India’s red lines far more severely than this interim framework.
And hovering over it all is uncertainty. The durability of this arrangement depends less on shared values and more on shifting political calculations in Washington. Personal rapport does not substitute for institutional balance.
The Deeper Question
A trade deal becomes historic not because it is signed, but because it is signed without pressure.
India’s real achievement in the 1970s was not higher yields or grain surpluses alone. It was freedom from coercion—the ability to say no.
Measured against that standard, the current deal is not a triumph. It is a pause—a tactical adjustment to avoid immediate damage.
India’s gain lies in avoiding pain, not newfound strength.
That distinction matters. Because history shows what happens when dependence is normalised, and pressure is rationalised, India once swore it would never return to that place.
The question now is whether this interim framework is a bridge to genuine autonomy or a reminder of how easily old vulnerabilities can resurface in new forms.