Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted a private dinner for US President Joe Biden on Friday night after holding successful bilateral talks on several issues aiming to strengthen the Indo-US partnership ahead of the G20 Summit. During the meeting, India and the US settled the last trade dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over poultry products, according to a joint statement released.
With this, both nations have mutually resolved all the seven pending trade disputes at the WTO.
The joint statement said, “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.”
This statement was issued after PM Modi met the US president at his 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence in the national capital.
Meanwhile, after meeting the Indian prime minister, Joe Biden took to X (formerly Twitter) to extend his gratitude to Modi.
PM Modi and President Joe Biden have also 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.
Both leaders, in their nearly 50-minute talks, 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.
On Friday, India also lifted additional duties on certain US products including apples, lentils, walnuts etc., which were imposed in 2019 in response to America’s decision to increase tariffs on certain steel and aluminium products.
Notably, India imposed duties on 28 products in retaliation to the US’s move in 2019.
During PM Modi’s State visit to the US, both nations decided to eliminate six WTO (World Trade Organisation) disputes and also remove the retaliatory tariffs on certain US products.
As part of the agreement, India will be removing additional duty on chickpeas (10 per cent), lentils (20 per cent), almonds fresh or dried (₹7 per kg), almonds shelled (₹20 per kg), walnuts (20 per cent), and apples fresh (20 per cent).
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