India to Maintain Agriculture Protections in Deal with Trump

The Trump administration said Tuesday it plans to reduce India’s tariffs on American industrial goods to zero from 13.5 percent, but will allow India to continue protecting its farmers from foreign competition, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

The agreement would reduce the US tariff on most Indian goods to 18 percent from 50 percent.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer made the statement a day after President Trump agreed to reduce tariffs on New Delhi, saying India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil.

Trump hit India with 50 percent tariffs last year, 25 percentage points of which were a penalty for buying Russian oil that he said was helping to fund the war in Ukraine.

Greer told CNBC in a live interview that the US would continue to push for access to certain protected areas of India’s agriculture sector, but said India’s tariffs “for a variety of things — tree nuts, wine, spirits, fruits, vegetables, etc. — are going down to zero.”

He did not mention rice, beef, soybeans, sugar, or dairy, commodities India excluded from its recent trade deal with the European Union (EU).

Greer confirmed that the agreement would reduce the US tariff on most Indian goods to 18 percent from 50 percent, citing the size and growth of India’s trade surplus with the US, which reached $53.5 billion during the first 11 months of 2025, up from $45.8 billion for all of 2024, according to US Census Bureau data.