The U.S. and India are still hoping to get an agreement on terms for a trade deal.
So far, so good — maybe. U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday night during a dinner at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netyanhu that the U.S. is close to a trade deal with India. That fueled speculation on Tuesday that an agreement might be imminent.
But trade talks can be delicate, with a lot of back-and-forth jockeying to feel out the other side. In Trump’s tariff world, much will depend on whether the undisclosed counter-offer trade terms by India meet with Trump’s approval, as well as India’s reaction to any push back from Trump. In a Cabinet meeting Tuesday morning, Trump emphasized that all trade proposals are “my deals to them.” It’s a blatant statement by Trump that he’s the one in charge, holding the “yay” or “nay” card. He added that the tariffs chosen for each country are lower than what the U.S. is being charged for American exports to that country.
On Wednesday, Trump sent out a new round of tariff letters — 30 percent tariff rates on imports to the U.S. from Libya, Sri Lanka, Irag and Algeria; 25 percent from Brunei and Moldova, and 20 percent from Philippines — that did not include India. That’s an indication that the U.S. and India talks have not derailed.
For India, the hope is that an agreement on the parameters for a trade deal now will translate to a better tariff rate than the 26 percent reciprocal tariff rate Trump disclosed on April 2.
According to Statista, 97 percent of sales in the market in India for 2025 is considered non-luxury. Boots, with a market volume of $11.71 billion, represents the largest segment of the shoe industry. And with a growing middle class, the shoe industry in India is forecasted to grow annual by 7.7 percent from 2025 to 2030.
And according to World Footwear, shoe exports to the U.S. are pegged at $6 billion. Export volume to the U.S. is expected to rise to $8 billion by 2030. While the industry serves primarily its own booming domestic market, India has shifted production to include exports to other countries. Its export volume is an estimated 250 million pairs annually, primarily to the U.S. and major European markets.
Data from the India Trade Promotion Organization said the country is the second largest global producer of footwear after China, “accounting for 13 percent of global footwear production of 16 billion pairs.” The major production centers include Mumbai, Kanpur, Agra, and Delhi, among others, employing about 1.1 million in footwear manufacturing across the country.
“India has state-of-the-art manufacturing plants. The footwear sector has matured from the level of the manual footwear manufacturing method to the automated footwear manufacturing systems,” the India Trade Promotion Organization said in a data sheet on India shoe production. “The future growth of the footwear industry in India will continue to be market-driven, and oriented towards EU (European Union) and U.S. markets.”