Indo-U.S. interim trade deal looks like ‘pre-committed purchase agreement’: Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor critiques the Indo-U.S. trade deal, saying that it looks like a "pre-committed purchase agreement" undermining India's economic interests.

The India-U.S. interim trade deal looks more like a "pre-committed purchase agreement" that overturns every principle of reciprocity, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday (February 10, 2026) and slammed Union Ministers S. Jaishankar and Piyush Goyal for playing "ping pong" when questions are posed.

India-U.S. trade deal updates

Initiating a debate in the Lok Sabha on the Union Budget, Mr. Tharoor said the government’s claim that India has secured a "better deal" than China, Vietnam, or other Asian economies does not withstand scrutiny.

“While India may have obtained tariff reductions of one or two percentage points, no East Asian economy has agreed to deliberately dilute its trade surplus with the United States through guaranteed purchase commitments," he said.

The Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram asked how one could speak of a "reciprocal tariff" of 18% on one side and 0% on the other. "It looks less like a free trade arrangement and more like a pre-committed purchase agreement that overturns every principle of reciprocity," he said.

At a time when India’s total bilateral trade with the U.S. stands at roughly $130 billion and a trade surplus of nearly $45 billion, the government has surprisingly promised to buy $500 billion worth of American goods over five years, he said.