India can have a huge chance to seek advantage from the trade tension between the US and China, said US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said on Thursday at a World Economic Forum (WEF).
The US will also highlight how India can step into Beijing exports to Washington, Ross said under the session 'Trading against the Tide" attended by some of the reputed Industry and Commerce ministers globally.
“India has a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of trade dissension elsewhere. In our one-on-one meeting with Goyal, we prepared a chart about the areas where China is a big exporter to us compared to what India is exporting to us, the possible solutions, and how we change that mixture,”
According to Ross, the US was looking forward to levelling the playing field. US is least protectionist country of the major powers. India, on the other hand, is protectionist.
However, Ross did dismiss expectations of limited trade deal between India and US during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US visit earlier last week.
Ross said, "Neither government said that there would be a trade deal in five minutes. I think that was just speculation. We do think there is no structural reason why there can’t be one pretty quickly."
During the event, Ross also mentioned that the US wants wider market access for its farm and manufacturing products, dairy items, and medical devices.
Earlier in June this year, India-US trade was strained, when Washington withdrew Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) that gave benefits to Indian exporters of $5.6 billion.
However, after a few months of withdrawal, the US concluded the trade deals to remain relevant, as was the case with US deals involving Canada and Mexico.
“If trade deals take 8-10 years to conclude, the issues don’t remain the same they were at the time of the beginning of the negotiations,” he said.
