Any tariff actions undertaken by the US administration are applied globally and are not targeted towards specific regions or countries such as India, said Sergio Gor, the US’ Ambassador to India. This was in response to questions regarding the US proposing 12.5% tariffs on India and 53 other countries for failure to impose a legal prohibition on “importation of goods produced wholly or in part with forced labor.”

“Look, the reality of it is that the tariffs that were applied were applied around the world. So these weren’t tariffs that were picked at India. These were tariffs that were applied to everybody, from the European Union to Canada to Mexico, to literally almost every other country in Asia, including Japan and North Korea,” Gor said. He was speaking at Citi’s 2026 India Conference in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Gor added that 99% of the negotiations between the two countries on a trade deal have been wrapped up, with just a few technical and legal sticking points left to iron out. “It’s that 1% that we are striving to get across the finish line so that the leaders can have a signing and put that in stone and in law. And so we’re hopeful that will get accomplished over the next weeks, or maybe several weeks, but it’s not going to be years,” said Gor.

“One of the reasons this deal is tough is because for many years India has held the line on so many items that the United States was not able to get in here. That’s why it took 19 years for the European Union to crack that trade deal. And a lot of it (of the remaining 1%) is frankly technicalities. Part of it is when does something kick in, and that’s a lot of legal language that we’re hopeful that they’ll get there,” Gor added. He said talks will continue this week, with US negotiators, currently in New Delhi, slated to meet Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday.

Both countries announced an interim trade deal on February 6, in which the US agreed to reduce reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods to 18%, while India agreed to reduce tariffs on US industrial goods, along with capital investment commitments. Currently, the US levies a 10% tariff on Indian goods, with a 12.5% additional tariff also proposed.

Calling the relationship between the two countries as the “most consequential global partnership of the century,” Gor said that Washington is also looking for deeper collaboration with New Delhi for artificial intelligence and semiconductors, referencing the Transforming the Relationship Utilising Strategic Technology (TRUST) initiative that was jointly launched back in February.