After the H-1B visa fiasco, India is going to face troubles on the trade and investment fronts, too from the US. As per the 2017 Trade Policy Agenda unveiled by the Trump administration, the US will come down on India’s export subsidy programmes, and push for a stricter regime for intellectual property rights and patents.
The 2017 Trade Policy Agenda and 2016 Annual Report of the President of the United States on the Trade Agreements Program - released by the Office of the United States Trade Representative categorically said that India’s “import restricting measures” result in “serious market access issues” for the US industry. The document sees a general trend of tariff increases in India, which reflects an active pursuit of import substitution policies.
The United States raised strong concerns regarding India’s decision to impose import tariffs on certain telecommunication products covered under the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), as well as India’s tariff increases in a number of sectors that impact U.S. exports to India. It said that the United States will continue to seek to engage India bilaterally to commit to a phase-out of its export subsidy programs to the extent that they benefit the textile and apparel sector.
The report however also stated that India’s trade and regulatory policies have “inhibited” the real growth potential of the bilateral trade that rose to $109 billion in 2015 from $4.8 billion in 1980. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, it says, could provide an impetus to the creation of a “common internal market that significantly lowers transaction costs.”