What U.S.-India Trade Talks Are Really About

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The most prominent events this week: The United States and India are trying to grant a The main commercial dealHigh -level phone call provides a window in The United States Bangladesh Relationship and number Afghans deportation From Iran and Pakistan, following the Israeli conflict, Iran.

American commercial conversations and India exceeds this with a lot of trade

This week, the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs S. arrived. Jayishkar to Washington to attend the meeting of a quadruple security ministers. However, the largest story in the United States and India’s relations at the present time are continuous trade negotiations. The two sides are trying to finish the first stage of the deal before July 9, when US President Donald Trump is scheduled to end for 90 days on overwhelming global tariffs.

Commercial conversations are high quotas for India, which faces the possibility of 26 percent American tariffs at a moment when its economy – while its strong and growing quickly – was not equal to its performance. However, the importance of talks exceeds economic considerations: they are also decisive to New Delhi’s comprehensive relations with Washington, which have achieved unexpected protests in recent weeks. The result of the conversations can be a bell for the broader path of partnership.

The Trump administration has taken many recent moves that have sparked New Delhi. First, its full support behind India during the conflict with Pakistan in May, instead it calls both sides to cancel the escalation. After that, Trump boasted several times from the decisive role in the United States in mediation in the ceasefire-which India denies-even though New Delhi is sensitive to third-party interventions in its crises.

Trump has publicly offered to help mediate the conflict of India and Pakistan in the long run on Kashmir, which was explained by the previous not to negotiate.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his concerns about these matters in an invitation with Trump last month. Indian readings, who said the conversation lasted 35 minutes, suggests that Modi spoke in strong phrases to Trump while the president was “listening carefully.” This call came one day after the United States, which is likely to bother New Delhi: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a new advice to travel to India, and warned against the Americans’ visit to exercise “increased caution” because of “crime and terrorism”.

India’s fears of signs that the United States aspire to the court doubled. These include Trump’s letters on the ceasefire and Kashmir, which were well received in Islamabad. Calls for his administration to participate with Pakistan on issues including cryptocurrencies, critical minerals, and combating terrorism; More importantly, Trump’s decision to host lunch at the White House to the head of the Pakistani army last month.

All this comes after the United States and India’s relations appeared to be a great start in the second Trump state. Moody was one of the first foreign leaders to visit the White House after the opening. In February, the couple issued a joint statement pledged in multi -faceted cooperation on issues including defense and energy security, and based on a partnership that has expanded significantly in recent decades. For more concrete relations, India made risky concessions politically, from pledging introductory discounts to the return of dozens of Indians living in the United States illegally.

A commercial agreement before the end of the customs tariff stops will present a big boost to the United States and India partnership at this critical moment. A confidence building procedure can help correct the relationship and bring a new momentum to many of its paths, from cooperation in facing China to cooperation in defense, energy, technology and higher education.

However, the failure to obtain a deal by July 9 will add to the current bilateral distress and amplify the doubts that some people housed in India-it was not scheduled for the first time in recent years-that the United States could really be reliable like long Indian friends such as France and Russia.

US officials said that “everything on the table” in commercial talks with commercial partners in Washington. This indicates that India will face pressure to make introductory concessions in the sectors in all fields – including those in which protection is of political importance, such as agriculture, which is an important source of employment in India.

However, given a rapidly developed commercial relationship, both sides have a strong interest in the deal. The fate of the negotiations is likely to reflect this same relationship: he will face obstacles, but in the end he wanders.

What we are following

Yunus Rubio call. On Monday, Mohamed Younis, the chief adviser to the interim government in Bangladesh, spoke on the phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which represents one of the highest level of participants in the United States so far during the second Trump administration.

The call provides a window on how the United States deals with its relationship with Bangladesh – that has turned greatly since Trump’s return to office. During the recent months of the Biden Administration, US officials have pledged to help new development and technical assistance to reforms of a temporary government looking to rebuild democracy in Bangladesh after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Al -Balad fled amid mass protests last August.

The Trump administration has reduced foreign aid significantly and has no little interest in devoting resources to enhance democracy or building the state in Bangladesh. Instead, Yunus-Rubio’s invitation readings from both governments indicate to Washington now looking at their relations with Dhaka through major trade and competition lenses.

The couple talked about strengthening economic relations and partnership on enhancing security in the Indian Pacific-which, for the latter, for the United States, is to confront China.

Both goals are challenges to Dhaka. Bangladesh faces 37 percent of the American customs tariff if it does not succeed in a trade agreement with Washington. It has long followed an unaccounted foreign policy, aimed at balances relations with the main powers rather than alignment with or against it.

A terrorist attack in Pakistan. Thirteen Pakistani soldiers were killed in a suicide attack claimed by a TTP faction (TTP) on Saturday in northern Waziristan, an area in the Khyber Bakhtongu Province in northwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.

TTP fighters often targeted boycott in recent years, especially since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, which has provided a stable haven. Local officials said the attackers broke a car full of explosives in a military convoy-a common tactic used by terrorists in Pakistan.

Although this special attack depends on more traditional tactics, the security situation of the Khyber Pakunkhwa is increasingly defined by using advanced weapons between both terrorists and security forces.

On Sunday, the gunmen were said to have used a drone as an armed Breast with explosives to hit a paramilitary base. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Army periodically turns into drones to target terrorists, although Islamabad does not tend to publicly recognize its use due to civil losses. It is often unclear whether the security forces or militants are carrying out strikes. According to one of the unknown strokes on June 20, a region near the school, killing a child and wounding several others.

This combination of terrorist attacks and the response of the state angered Pakistani societies; In May, North Waziristan residents organized a sit -in against a drone strike suspected of killing four children.

An increase in Afghan deportations. The United Nations Refugee Agency said during the weekend that at least 1.2 million Afghans were deported from Iran and Pakistan this year. The number rose during the Israeli Israeli conflict, as more than 36,000 crossed the border to Afghanistan on June 26 alone.

Some Iranian officials accused the Afghan refugees of spying for Israel. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Monday was the deadline for 1.3 million Afghans to voluntarily leave, with Islamabad planning to deport 3 million by the end of the year. The two governments have insisted that they only force the Afghans who are not documented to leave, but at least in Pakistan, there is evidence that the law registered legally has been arrested in Dragnet as well.

In both Iran and Pakistan, the deportations began to move in 2023. But the two countries began to become increasingly unwilling for Afghan refugees for more than a decade, which led to the choice of large numbers of them to migrate to Europe across the Mediterranean.

Today, those who are pushed to Afghanistan – who have never prolonged in the country – are not practicing with war but with the brutality of the Taliban rule. Taliban officials claim that the deportees will receive housing and other support, but this probably provides little reassurance – especially for women and other vulnerable Afghans targeting the Taliban regime.

Under the radar

The last months have brought a series of tiger deaths in India, which includes three quarters of the world’s wild tiger population. Last week, officials in the state of Karnataka said five tigers – a mother and four cubs – were found dead in a protected forest, perhaps from taking a cow’s body with poison. Three tigers also died in the state of Aam between March and May, one of whom was killed by angry mob.

Tigers have been considered at risk since 1986. The conservation of the population of the land tiger has felt in India, which has multiplied to more than 3,600 people over the past decade. But according to the figures of the Indian government, the tiger deaths have risen almost every year since 2019, when 628 deaths from 2019 to 2023. The causes include natural and abnormal causes, such as overfishing.

The tiger has made it clear for a complex challenge for Indian policy makers, who should struggle with the risk of tiger groups that coexist with human societies. From 2019 to 2023, 349 people were killed in India in tiger attacks.

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Regional voices

A Kathmando Post Editorial It spoils the increasing mental health issues faced by pregnant women and postpartum in Nepal: “The responsibility for recognizing the depression and the relevant infrastructure to support women to fall on the state.

in Prothom aloand Mahmoudour Rahman ManaThe new Nagorik Oikya party in Bangladesh presents a positive assessment of the country’s future. “I think we will be able to overcome obstacles and differences in the opinion that awaits us,” he writes. “We will be able to make the necessary steps and make the necessary decisions to reach the foothills of democracy.”

analyst Brazab Hano MihataAnd writing in Indian ExpressHe argues that the political imagination of India is still trapped in the past. “This is really ridiculous for a country whose population was very young,” he wrote. “It is doubled that in the era of economic, technological and moral change on this planetary range, we still want to remain stuck in the 1970s.”