{"id":104188,"date":"2026-02-16T15:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=104188"},"modified":"2026-02-16T15:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:24:12","slug":"indias-january-trade-deficit-widens-before-us-tariff-relief-is-implemented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=104188","title":{"rendered":"India’s January Trade Deficit Widens Before US Tariff Relief Is Implemented."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New Delhi \/ Washington; February 2026<\/strong>: India’s merchandise trade deficit widened to a three-month high of $34.68 billion in January, marking the final month impacted by around 50% U.S. tariff on Indian exports, which government officials said will be pared to 18% this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wider-than-expected goods trade deficit, was driven by a sharp rise in gold and silver imports, which pushed up total imports by 12% month-on-month to $71.24 billion, while exports fell 5% to $36.56 billion, data from the commerce ministry showed on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month had said that he would slash tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 50%, sparking relief among exporters and policymakers. Trump said that India has agreed to cut Russian oil purchases and intends to more than double its annual imports of U.S. goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A trade delegation will travel to Washington next week to finalise a trade agreement, Rajesh Agrawal, India’s trade secretary, told reporters today. The two nations are currently working on a trade pact on the basis of an interim framework, concluded earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Merchandise exports to the United States., India’s largest export market, fell 4.5% month-on-month to $6.58 billion in January. Shipments to the U.S. rose to $72.46 billion in the first ten months of the fiscal year, data showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rise in imports was driven by gold and silver shipments, a trade ministry official said. Gold imports in January rose to $12.07 billion from $4.13 billion in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Inflows into Indian gold exchange traded funds, which need to be backed by physical gold, nearly doubled in January to 240.4 billion rupees ($2.65 billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Continued large inflows into gold ETFs, and consequent purchase\/import of gold by ETFs, along with unabated imports of physical gold, may pose challenges to India’s current account deficit”, Kotak Institutional Equities said in a note today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Government data showed that services exports in January were estimated at $43.90 billion and imports at $19.60 billion, suggesting a services trade surplus of $24.30 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team Maverick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Delhi \/ Washington; February 2026: India’s merchandise trade deficit widened to a three-month high of $34.68 billion in January, marking the final month impacted by around 50% U.S. tariff on Indian exports, which government officials said will be pared to 18% this week. The wider-than-expected goods trade deficit, was driven by a sharp rise …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":104191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[81],"post_format":[],"flags":[],"class_list":["post-104188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104192,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104188\/revisions\/104192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/104191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104188"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_format&post=104188"},{"taxonomy":"flags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fflags&post=104188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}