India

The chair of the TRIPS Council urged flexibility and solutions-based discussions.

India’s intellectual property protections are insufficiently enforced and the country is enacting more trade barriers, the U.S. and European Union argued this week during New Dehli’s trade policy review at the World Trade Organization.

The U.S. and India are not “far away” from concluding a limited market-access deal that likely won’t be forged before the end of the Trump administration, outgoing U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday, advocating for a comprehensive trade agreement between the two.

The fate of a limited trade deal negotiated between Washington and New Delhi is still up in the air following the presidential election, leaving the Trump administration to decide whether to pull the trigger -- and take the credit -- or leave the decision to the trade team of President-elect Biden.

The U.S., the European Union and other countries, most also developed, have opposed a waiver on certain World Trade Organization intellectual property rules to facilitate access to pandemic-related medical products, including a future vaccine -- a waiver supported by many developing members.

“India has an unusually restrictive market when it comes to biopharmaceutical innovations,” writes the Judiciary Committee’s intellectual property panel chairman.

A limited bilateral trade deal between the U.S. and India can be concluded any time the U.S. wishes, Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.

India, the U.S. and China were put on the defensive at a World Trade Organization Agriculture Committee meeting on Tuesday, with India pressed to justify its breach of WTO agriculture domestic support limits and the U.S. and China compelled to defend the purchasing requirements in their phase-one trade deal, according to a Geneva-based trade official.

The Indian government in comments submitted to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative last week defended its digital services tax as necessary to “ensure a level-playing field,” arguing it does not discriminate against U.S. companies.