Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal took the stage at the ETSA event shortly after concluding a US visit during which he participated in the G20 Trade Ministers' Meeting and held bilateral talks with the Trump administration over a potential trade agreement. Speaking with a prominent news channel, he addressed a range of topics, including India's trade agreements, the state of India-US relations, foreign investment flows, and potential openings for Indian businesses stemming from tighter controls on the green card programme.
Acknowledging that deep bilateral ties between India and the United States generate some friction, Minister Goyal expressed the view that both governments understand the partnership to be one worth cultivating. Pointing to the broader arc of the relationship and its consequences for the world economy, he indicated that undue weight should not be placed on any individual incident or remark.
Goyal told interlocutors that neither H-1B visa arrangements nor the green card programme had come up during his bilateral discussions with the US side — a pattern, he noted, that had held throughout his seven-and-a-half-year tenure as commerce minister. The position he put forward drew a distinction between immigration and free trade agreement matters, treating the two as separate domains, while still recognising that the movement of people to deliver services carries its own role. He also put forward the position that nations hold an inherent right to oversee and set rules for their own affairs.
A tighter cap on H-1B visas could, in his view, benefit the Indian economy, given that a long-standing pattern of skilled professionals leaving for the United States has historically drained domestic talent pools, while shifts in workplace norms since the pandemic have reduced the premium on being physically present in another country. Cities including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurugram, Noida, and Mumbai have drawn an expanding share of global capability centre operations, according to observations he put forward. He also put forward the view that every US company is pursuing expanded operations in India.
Goyal told reporters that conditions had shifted from those in place in February, when both governments announced they had reached an agreement in principle, and that a ruling from the US Supreme Court had altered the President's ability to impose IEEPA tariffs, pushing negotiators toward exploring alternative frameworks. A free trade agreement, as he explained it, grants one trading partner favoured access to a market over rivals — an arrangement that does not require duties to fall to zero.
Nine free-trade agreements covering 38 developed nations form the foundation of a framework that, once all such deals are factored in, would grant preferential market access across an $85 trillion pool of global GDP, according to the statement he made. Talks with the US were still under way, he noted, with the foundational terms having been settled in February and lawyers now working through the remaining contractual details.
Minister Goyal described the EU free trade agreement as finalised, adding that the EU had moved through its approval process at a pace not seen in previous negotiations. The closure announcement, made on January 27, preceded an agreement whose entry into force is projected for early next year, with backing from all 27 EU member states, none of which cast a dissenting vote.
Speaking on the question of Russian oil tariffs, Minister Goyal outlined that sour medium-quality crude from the Middle East and Russia forms the backbone of what Indian refineries process, that volumes of American oil and gas are flowing into the country, and that keeping a spread of energy suppliers rather than concentrating on any single source underpins the approach India has adopted.
Three considerations shaped Minister Goyal's account of FDI and capital market outflows: the pull of Western technology stocks, a bond yield gap between the US and India that has been narrowing, and the relatively undeveloped state of India's artificial intelligence industry. Minister Goyal outlined readiness to back homegrown startups at international trade fairs, industry conferences, and product showcases, indicating that both his ministry and the broader government stand behind such funding.
Drawing on the Bharat Innovates initiative as an example, he pointed to a programme that filtered 130 deep technology startups out of a pool of 3,000 applicants and brought them to a gathering held in Nice, France. He also urged Indian businesses to extend their reach into international markets, rather than directing attention exclusively toward opportunities within their own borders.
