India, US settle last trade dispute at WTO

New Delhi: India and the US have settled the last trade dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over poultry products, according to a joint statement released on Friday.

With this, the two countries have mutually resolved all the seven pending trade disputes at the WTO.

"The leaders lauded the settlement of the seventh and last outstanding WTO dispute between India and the United States. This follows the unprecedented settlement of six outstanding bilateral trade disputes in the WTO in June 2023,” the joint statement said.

It was issued after the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Joseph R Biden, Jr., here. Biden is here to attend the G20 Summit to be held on Saturday and Sunday.

Modi and the US President vowed to "deepen and diversify" the bilateral major defence partnership while welcoming forward movement in India's procurement of 31 drones and joint development of jet engines.

In their over 50-minute talks, the two leaders deliberated on India's G20 presidency, cooperation in nuclear energy, critical and emerging technologies such as 6G and artificial intelligence, and ways to fundamentally reshape multilateral development banks.

Earlier, the seventh dispute was discussed during the visit of US Trade Representative Katherine Tai's meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal meeting last month here.

They had tasked their respective teams with continuing discussions on this dispute in order to reach a solution soon.

During Modi's visit to the US in June, the two countries announced ending of six trade disputes at the WTO and India's removal of tariffs on certain U.S. products (chickpeas, lentils, almonds, walnuts, apples, boric acid, and diagnostic reagents).

The poultry case was filed by the US against India in the WTO in 2012. India has lost the dispute both at the panel as well as the appellate body levels. It was ruled against India that New Delhi's ban on imports of poultry products from the US was inconsistent with global norms.

As India was not able to implement the decision within the stipulated time frame, the US had demanded compensation. After that, both countries were discussing ways to resolve the case mutually.

The US is the largest trading partner of India. In 2022-23, the bilateral goods trade increased to USD 128.8 billion as against USD 119.5 billion in 2021-22.