NEW DELHI: The India-US interim trade deal looks more like a “pre-committed purchase agreement” that overturns every principle of reciprocity, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday, adding that Union ministers S Jaishankar and Piyush Goyal have avoided giving clear answers regarding the scale, timeline or fiscal impact of agreement with the US.Initiating a discussion in LS on the Budget, Tharoor termed it as “underwhelming” and a “squandered opportunity, equivalent to rearranging the airbags on a crashing car, while assuring the passengers that the chassis is sturdy and they will feel better afterwards”.On govt’s claim that India secured a “better deal” with the US than other Asian economies, he said the assertion does not withstand scrutiny. “It appears less like a FTA and more like a pre-committed purchase that overturns the very idea of reciprocity,” he asked.He said while India may have received tariff reductions of 1-2 percentage points, no East Asian economy has agreed to deliberately erode its trade surplus with the US through guaranteed purchase obligations.Targeting govt, Tharoor said this is not governance but headline management where “promises are loud, Budgets are grand, but delivery is conspicuously absent”. TNN
