After US President Donald Trump on Monday slashed tariffs on India from 50 per cent to 18 per cent under the India-US trade deal, the American Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins said that the trade deal will improve access to American farm products to “India’s massive market”. This comes amid farmers’ concerns over a surge in imports of US farm products as Washington is considered to be among the world’s largest agricultural subsidisers.
While it remains unclear which agricultural product categories have been opened under the trade deal, the US trade deals under the Trump administration have had an aggressive emphasis on agriculture. The US not only sought market access for agriculture in all of the trade deals struck under Trump’s second term, but also renegotiated deals to include farm products during the last 12 months alone.
“The new US-India deal will export more American farm products to India’s massive market, lifting prices and pumping cash into rural America. In 2024, America’s agricultural trade deficit with India was $1.3 billion. India’s growing population is an important market for American agricultural products,a nd today’s deal will go a long way to reducing this deficit,” Rollins said
Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said, “The Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] also committed to ‘BUY AMERICAN,” at a much higher level, in addition to over $500 BILLION DOLLARS of U.S. Energy, Technology, Agricultural, Coal, and many other products. Our amazing relationship with India will be even stronger going forward”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on multiple occasions expressed his commitment to preventing any adverse impact on Indian farmers. On August 7, after the US President Donald Trump doubled tariffs on India to 50 per cent, Modi said that he would not compromise “even if it entailed paying a very heavy personal price”.
“The well-being of Indian farmers, fisherfolk and cattle keepers is our foremost priority. Modi is standing like a wall against any adverse policy that could impact Indian farmers, fisherfolk and cattle keepers. India will never compromise the interests of Indian farmers, fisherfolk and cattle keepers,” the Prime Minister said during his Independence Day speech.
The Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements (ICCFM), a farmers’ body, had asked the government last year to exclude all aspects of agriculture from the US trade deal in order to protect the interests of Indian farmers.
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In a letter to Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, the ICCFM warned that granting duty-free access to US agricultural products under a trade agreement could have serious consequences. It said that the US has been engaged in a trade war with China, Mexico and Canada since 2018, which has severely affected its agricultural exports.
“The US trade deficit in agriculture has nearly doubled, indicating a significant surplus they may seek to offload onto markets like India. For example, soybean exports from the US dropped from $34.4 billion in 2022 to $24.5 billion in 2024, while corn exports fell from $18.6 billion to $13.9 billion during the same period,” the letter stated.
The ICCFM further emphasised the risk to Indian farmers, stating that the US government is among the world’s largest agricultural subsidisers. The 2024 US Farm Bill has allocated a staggering $1.5 trillion towards farm subsidies to American farmers.
These substantial supports not only restrict agricultural imports into the US but also enable American products to enter export markets at artificially low prices. Allowing such heavily subsidised US imports into India, the ICCFM argued, would undermine India’s longstanding position at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against these very subsidies.
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A report by the State Bank of India (SBI) also cautioned that opening India’s dairy sector to US imports could result in an annual loss of Rs 1.03 lakh crore to Indian dairy farmers. The report highlighted that milk prices in India could drop by at least 15 per cent if the sector is opened up, significantly affecting the livelihoods of small dairy farmers due to the heavily subsidised US dairy industry.