In his Aug. 15, 2022, speech — 75 years to the day after India declared its independence from the British Empire — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might hardly have been clearer: India intends to be a high world energy properly earlier than the top of this century and already is rising as a job mannequin for different nations, large and small, around the globe.

Investors and overseas financial powers should take discover of Modi’s ambition to make sure India shall be a developed nation by its 100-year anniversary in 2047, lest they discover themselves taking part in catch-up with those that rightly gauge the alternatives to learn from the centrifugal financial power that India will certainly generate within the subsequent quarter century.

India has been busy on the commerce entrance not too long ago, asserting the beginning or conclusion of recent free commerce agreements (FTAs) in speedy succession. First, it accomplished an FTA in February 2022 with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a comparatively small participant in world commerce however a serious Indian commerce companion. India adopted with an “interim” FTA with Australia, concluding negotiations that had sat moribund for a few years. Now, India is lighting fires beneath FTA negotiations with the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom (UK), and Canada, exploring new negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Bangladesh, and looking for upgrades to present FTAs with Japan, Korea, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Conspicuous is the United States by its absence from this frenzy of negotiating motion by India.

Indian commerce officers haven’t been shy in conveying interest in an FTA with the United States. The advantages can’t be overstated. Factor within the measurement of the 2 economies, the importance of present India-U.S. commerce and funding, and the potential to develop bilateral financial exercise significantly, and the U.S.-India FTA could be larger than all the opposite Indian FTAs mixed. However, the Biden administration has been equally clear that it’s not prepared to barter FTAs, even after strain from Indo-Pacific allies to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), now the Comprehensive and Progressive TPP (CPTPP).

There are indicators that the United States and India perceive the significance of elevating the bar for future accomplishments of their typically stagnant financial relationship, even because the strategic partnership blossomed. In November 2021, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal spearheaded a profitable reconvening of the bilateral Trade Policy Forum (TPF), the principle venue for discussing commerce between the 2 sides. They engaged again on the TPF ministerial on Jan. 11 in Washington to set the agenda for bilateral commerce within the coming 12 months.

The Biden administration additionally has courted India to take part in its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) initiative, though India declined to participate in the IPEF’s trade pillar. Hard-won expertise means that multilateral negotiations should not the optimum strategy for constructing confidence between the United States and India on commerce, a pessimism once more confirmed on the 12^th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in June 2022 the place the 2 have been at loggerheads on an extended listing of points.

The backside line is that, whereas there was loads of engagement between the 2 on commerce lately, there may be little or no to point out for all of the onerous work. We fear that the disappointments will curdle into a brand new cycle of cynicism, with either side concluding that any additional investments in deepening and widening the U.S.-India commerce relationship are unwarranted.

Ironically, given this admittedly gloomy evaluation of the established order, the present second could also be perfect for the Biden administration to plot a path ahead for a future FTA negotiation with India.

Unlike different bilateral, regional, and multilateral venues for engagement, FTA negotiation would current distinctive dynamics for leverage on either side. Indeed, the Biden administration may seize an historic alternative to place commerce with India atop its worldwide financial agenda earlier than it’s too late. While the United States sits on the sidelines, India develops superior commerce relationships with mutual companions and successfully trades with the enemy, Russia. Altering the trajectory of the U.S.-India commerce relationship requires daring concepts now; else, we would look again on this wasted second with deep remorse for years to come back.

Small, early victories shall be necessary. To keep away from the failures of the previous, the imaginative and prescient of a future FTA should be central. That approach bureaucratic or political resistance may be extra readily overcome. The step-wise plan we advocate might enhance ranges of confidence and achievement alongside the way in which. It might begin with the Biden administration rising from its anti-FTA slumber and President Biden and Prime Minister Modi asserting a mutual need to barter an FTA.

Indeed, 2023 might be a watershed for advancing a brand new U.S.-India commerce agenda, significantly to concentrate on problems with vital significance for either side, akin to digital commerce, environmental sustainability, and extra equitable distribution of the financial advantages of commerce. The TPF ought to undertake work in these areas in 2023 directly to start to set the groundwork for a extra built-in and resilient commerce relationship. There is not any higher path to facilitate friend-shoring with strategic allies than pursuing an FTA.

This imaginative and prescient for an FTA is compelling. All we lack is political will.

While the U.S.-India relationship is more likely to proceed to develop in coming years even with out a dedication to an FTA, it won’t meet its full potential if financial partnership lags strategic ambition. There is not any higher second than now to create a bedrock partnership, when world instability threatens the strategic and financial pursuits of every nation.

Mark Linscott is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. Prior to becoming a member of the Atlantic Council, he was the assistant US commerce consultant for South and Central Asian Affairs from December 2016 to December 2018. He additionally beforehand served because the assistant US commerce consultant for World Trade Organization (WTO) and the assistant US commerce consultant for Environment and Natural Resources. From 1996 to 2002, Mr. Linscott represented the United States on the US Mission to the WTO.

Gopal Nadadur is Vice President for South Asia at The Asia Group in New Delhi. He beforehand served as a researcher and coverage professional with NITI Aayog, the premier coverage suppose tank of the Government of India. Gopal additionally labored for over eight years with the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s markets groups. He earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Penn State University and a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Irfan Nooruddin is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Indian Politics within the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.