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.