Since early 2025, India and the U.S. have been negotiating a bilateral trade agreement (BTA), which promises to be the largest and most extensive free trade agreement India has negotiated thus far. The BTA was announced through the United States-India Joint Leaders’ Statement, and the first tranche of this mutually beneficial, multi-sector agreement was to be negotiated by the fall of 2025 (https://bit.ly/4wXiUdI). However, with President Donald Trump and his administration spending most of 2025 pursuing aggressive unilateralism not seen since the 1930s, the BTA negotiations moved relatively…

On 27^th January this year, India and the EU concluded their free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, the most protracted trade negotiations between two economies. It was at the 2005 EU-India Summit that the EU and India expressed “serious political commitment to increase bilateral trade and economic cooperation and to tackle barriers to trade and investment” and both sides agreed to commence negotiations for such an agreement in 2006. Formal negotiations for the FTA began in 2007.

When the political decision to initiate FTA negotiations was taken, the EU…

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) was held in Sevilla (Spain), from June 30 to July 3, 2025, amidst a challenging global economic and geopolitical environment. The FfD4 took place against the backdrop of rising global debt levels, backsliding of developmental goals, escalating geopolitical tensions, weakening of multilateralism and international solidarity, and severe climate shocks.

The FfD4 was the fourth in a series of international conferences convened by the United Nations. Its primary objectives were to close the $4 trillion annual funding gap for the Sustainable Development…

The executive orders signed by U.S. President Donald Trump last week to levy a 25 percent tariff on India, coupled with an additional 25 percent tariff announced on 6 August for its purchases of Russian oil, have posed new hurdles to the ongoing fast-track negotiations on an India-U.S. bilateral trade agreement (BTA).

The additional 25 percent tariff, which will come into effect from 27 August if India continues to buy oil from Russia, will effectively bring the total tariff on India to 50 percent. In tariff rankings, India now shares…

The term “international financial architecture” is currently experiencing a resurgence in popularity thanks to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), scheduled for June 30 to July 3, 2025, in Spain. Despite the extensive discourse surrounding this concept since the late 1990s, there is no universally accepted definition of what is meant by the term “international financial architecture” (IFA). Generally speaking, IFA refers to a comprehensive framework comprising institutions, agreements, policies, rules, and practices that govern the global financial and monetary system. Amongst others, it includes:

• Mandates…
  
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