External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that India is prepared for a high degree of urgency in reaching a trade deal with regards to the United States, a country which he said has fundamentally changed its approach to engaging with the world and it has consequences across every domain.
Speaking at the Carnegie Global Technology Summit, Jaishankar said that India’s trade deals are very challenging as the US is very ambitious and the global landscape is very much different that what it was a year ago.
“This time around, we are certainly geared up for a very high degree of urgency. I mean we see a window. We want to see stuff. So our trade deals are very, you know, they’re really challenging. And we are really, when I look at the trade deals, I mean it’s not my direct credit, but we have a lot to do with each other. I mean these are people very much on top of their game, very ambitious about what they want to achieve,” he said.
Jaishankar added that just as the US has a view of India, India too has a view of them.
“We did four years of talking in the first Trump administration. They have their view of us and frankly we have our view of them. The bottom line is that they didn’t get that. So if you look at the EU, often people say we’ve been negotiating for 30 years which is not entirely true because we had big blocks of time and nobody was even talking to each other. But they have tended to be very protracted processes,” he said.
Jaishankar said that the US-China trade dynamics are influenced by trade, as well as technology, and the decisions impelled by China are as consequential as the US.
“There’s the other shift, and that’s an evolution, you can say. It’s something which appears, even if it is not, more of an unfolding rather than dramatic events. And that is the advancement of China. So that is happened in respect of course, on trade. What we saw, in many ways is the trade story has also been tech story. And it had its dramatic moments, DeepSeek was one,” he said.
He said that both nations are influenced by each other.
“But I would argue that the changes impelled by China are as consequential as the shifts in the American position. In fact, one is to some extent, influenced by the other,” he said.
Jaishankar said that Japan, South Korea and China have sought to make a geopolitical comeback through technology.
“I think in many ways, Japan particularly, South Korea to some extent, have also sought through the tech world means of a geopolitical comeback. And, you know, the salience of Taiwan, of course, doesn’t need to be even mentioned,” he said.
In all this, he said, India is making progress in the Digital Public Infrastructure and is giving priority to semiconductors.
“Now, in all of this, where is India? And you’ve had an opportunity in this visit. I hope your conversations in the last two days have enhanced it, and the coming two days even more so, to acquaint yourself and to debate and discuss what is happening in our part of the world. Some of it is better known, DPI for example. Some of it is in the making. I mean, you know, the priority now given after many decades to semiconductors is an example,” he said.
Jaishankar said that through the Global Tech Summit, one could see the technological side of the country in a positive way.
“Who are the consumers? What will be the mode of consumption? Where are the refined rates for that new oil? And finally, what is going to be the trade in that particular commodity? And I’m really pleased that the organizers of GTS have chosen to take an optimistic view of this churn which is underway. This was completely their decision, but I do want to say that it reflects in many ways the mood of the country and certainly the outlook of the government,” he said. (ANI)
