Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal's week-long US visit is the latest push to close a deal that has been negotiated for months: the India-US Bilateral Trade Agreement. Here is what is at stake and where things stand.

Both sides are working towards an interim deal in line with their February 7, 2026 joint statement, with the full BTA to follow. Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said earlier this month that the agreement is 'more or less finalised', with work now focused on a framework for preferential market access before a formal signing.

The sticking points are familiar: India wants its exporters to get a tariff advantage over competing economies, not just a lower headline rate, while navigating US executive tariffs and its own MFN structure. Tensions over Washington's threatened tariffs linked to India's purchase of Russian oil have added friction. Goyal's meetings with USTR Jamieson Greer in Milwaukee, alongside the G20 trade ministers' gathering, are aimed at converting the near-final text into an announced outcome.