US to terminate sops on Indian exports: Markets are key and strategic to businesses on both sides, inevitable to reach an understanding

US and India should continue to work towards expanding and balancing their partnership in trade and economic space As the United States President Donald Trump announced his intention to bring to an end the preferential trade status enjoyed by India in relation to duty-free exports from India to the United States, it is necessary to understand what this implies for India. The US has been hammering that India has failed to meet these market access requirements and hence intends to pull the plug on duty-free imports from India under the GSP programme. What started as a market access issue concerning medical devices and dairy products sectors was subsequently expanded by the US to include market access for animal husbandry products, agriculture products, information and tariff reductions on communications technology products and reworking testing and conformity assessment norms by India for products from the information and communications technology space, to name a few. The revenue implication for the US is not expected to be significant for them and for India the duty benefit lost on account of loss of preferential trade status with the US is about $190 million a year, again not a significant figure particularly pegged against the implications of giving into equitable and reasonable market access demands of the US to continue to be eligible for duty-free exports to the US under the GSP programme.