U.S. negotiators will travel to Kenya to have talks under the Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership at the end of the month. "The negotiators last met in person under the STIP in October 2023 in Washington, DC, and have continued to make progress in deepening mutual understanding and resolving differences," the Office of U.S. Trade Representative said. The discussions will cover agriculture, good regulatory practices and workers' rights, it said.

The U.S. says its "mini deal" approach is better than traditional free trade deals, because of their speed and focus on current problems, and while two trade experts didn't dismiss FTAs as a 20th-century tool, they acknowledged those advantages mean mini deals are here to stay.

Switzerland and India have reached an agreement on a free trade deal, Swiss Economy Minister Guy Parmelin announced on X, formerly Twitter. Parmelin said the two countries achieved "solutions to the main open issues of" the deal, which the two sides have been negotiating for years. "After 16 years of negotiations, we have reached agreement on the basic principles of" a deal he said, according to an unofficial translation. "So that this can be signed as soon as possible, our teams are working hard to clarify the last outstanding details."

Both Asian countries and American businesses had hoped that the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework could be a step on the road to lowering tariffs, trade experts said during a webinar on the future of IPEF, but now they're wondering if there will be any economically significant effect at all from talks about trade facilitation, green transition and supply chain resilience.

India and the U.S. should aim for "economically meaningful outcomes" from better customs and trade facilitation, supply chain linkages, trade in high-tech products and trade in critical minerals between the two countries, India's commerce minister and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a joint statement.