United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday said Washington was “very close” to finalising a trade deal with India, adding that it was one of the things taken into consideration when making decisions on national security waivers.
The US Secretary of State is scheduled to travel to India on Tuesday, and will hold a meeting with external affairs minister S Jaishankar in Mumbai. “We’re trying to finalize a trade deal with India right now. We’re very close to doing that. US President Donald Trump had waived several sanctions related to Russian energy which were set to take effect under the Lindsey O. To be sure, the secondary sanctions have just been deferred, leaving Trump free to use the law against these countries whenever he chooses.
So that’s one of the things we take into consideration when the President makes a decision about national security waivers and things of that nature,” Rubio said while speaking to reporters in Samarkant, Uzbekistan. The law, which has been put on hold, would have imposed tariffs of up to 100 per cent on top five purchasers of Russian crude oil or gas, which included India.
Rubio said America has “had to waive sanctions over the past few months” owing to the global supply situation and “the impact it was having on other countries. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act citing “national security” reasons.
“Geography is real. For some countries, it’s very difficult to acquire energy from alternative sources.
He further said it was harder for some countries to diversify imports owing to geographical constraints. That’s not an excuse, but all of that has to be balanced when you make foreign policy,” the US Secretary of State said.
His remarks come a day after he had acknowledged that while India had diversified its energy imports, it would be hard for New Delhi to “pivot” from Russian imports in a day. “…It’s (India) still getting a substantial amount of energy from Russia because it’s hard to pivot from one day to the next,” Rubio had said. Union minister Piyush Goyal had, last week, said the first tranche of India-US bilateral trade agreement is ready and legal drafting is currently under process.
