Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal on early Friday hit back at leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi calling his allegations on the India-US trade deal “baseless,” claiming that he “has no concern for Bharat”. Goyal further asserted that the trade pact fully protects farmers’ interests. In a post on X, Goyal said, “…Rahul Gandhi is a habitual liar… and has no concern for Bharat. In a video released today, he has broken all records of speaking falsehood and made baseless allegations. He is misleading our farmers with his fake narrative and trying to provoke them…” “He has never cared for our motherland nor can we expect him to ever work for a strong and prosperous future for India,” he added.Defending the trade pact, Goyal said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always been empathetic towards our farmers. He has always put the interest of farmers first and taken all decisions to ensure their prosperity… ““In the recent trade deal with the United States of America, the interests of farmers have been kept paramount and fully protected… The US trade deal will benefit our farmers with higher export of farm output and increased demand leading to higher prices and continuous prosperity of our farmers…” he added.Goyal also stressed that the India-US trade deal, which reduces tariffs on Indian exports to 18%, does not touch sensitive agriculture and dairy sectors.His remarks came after Rahul Gandhi on Thursday intensified his attack on the Centre, alleging that the agreement with the US “betrays our food security and farmers” and claiming that PM Modi has opened India’s agriculture market because US President Donald Trump “has him by the throat.” In a video posted on X, Rahul said, “Narendra Modi ji has sold the country, sold the farmers. File a case against me, abuse, do whatever you want to do, privilege motion if you want to file, file it, it doesn’t matter, I have spoken the truth in Parliament, if you don’t like the truth, that’s another matter, the country understands the truth, do whatever you want to do, I stand with farmers; Congress president Kharge ji and the entire Congress party, all our workers stand with farmers, we will not let this injustice happen.“In a separate post on X, Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also criticised Rahul saying, “…Rahul Gandhi is a liar and has nothing to do with the interests of the farmers… He consistently speaks against the nation’s interests…”“He has broken all records of lying. He wants to mislead the nation. PM Modi has always taken decisions in the best interests of the farmers… The farmers are totally protected under the Indo-US trade agreement…” he added.This comes days after India and the United States issued a joint statement outlining the newly announced trade agreement, under which tariffs on Indian goods entering the US will be reduced from 50% to 18%.The pact follows months of negotiations that began in February 2025.Under the agreement, India is set to benefit from lower US duties on a range of products, including textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber goods, organic chemicals, home décor items, handicrafts, and select machinery.In return, India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on several American industrial goods as well as certain agricultural products.The commerce minister had earlier clarified that most farm products cultivated by Indian farmers, including “dairy, poultry, rice, wheat, soybean, and maize, banana, strawberry, cherry, orange, vegetables, ethanol, tobacco, meat, pulses, millets, bajra, ragi- almost 90-95% of the produce of farmers is outside the US trade deal.”
