India says U.S. trade negotiations still ongoing, with lines India needs to defend

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday that India-U.S. trade negotiations are continuing, but there are lines that India needs to defend, just days before additional U.S. tariffs are due to hit.

Indian goods face additional U.S. tariffs of up to 50 percent, among the highest imposed by Washington, due to its increased purchases of Russian oil. A 25 percent tariff has already come into effect, while the remaining 25 percent is set to be enforced from August 27.

A planned visit by U.S. trade negotiators to New Delhi from August 25 to 29 has been called off, dashing hopes that the levies may be lowered or postponed. Shortly after the cancellation, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he would nominate 38-year-old Sergio Gor, one of his closest aides, to be the next U.S. ambassador to India and a special envoy for South and Central Asian affairs.

India-U.S. trade talks collapsed earlier this year due to India not agreeing to open its vast agricultural and dairy sectors. Bilateral trade between the world's largest and fifth-largest economies is worth over $190 billion.

Analysts at Capital Economics said on Friday that if the full U.S. tariffs come into force and stick, the hit to India's economic growth would be 0.8 percentage points both this year and next.

The Indian minister described Trump's policy announcements as "unusual." "We have not had a U.S. president who conducts his foreign policy so publicly as the current one, and (it) is a departure from the traditional way of conducting business with the world," Jaishankar said.

The minister also said India's purchases of Russian oil had not been raised in earlier trade talks with the U.S. before the public announcement of tariffs.