US Ambassador Sergio Gor Says India Trade Deal Is Close, But Kashmir Remark Sparks Pakistan Protest

US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor says the trade deal Washington and New Delhi have been chasing for over a year is almost finished. He said so Saturday at the Economic Times World Leaders Forum, and the framing was pure confidence: "the trade deal is, in principle, almost everything is done," with the remaining work being legal and technical language, according to the Times of India.

The numbers Gor cited are real and worth stating plainly. Bilateral trade between the US and India has gone from $20 billion fifteen years ago to $240 billion today, according to Gor's own remarks reported by both the Times of India and ANI via awazthevoice.in. Presidents Trump and Modi have set a target of $500 billion by 2030.

Gor also admitted the deal already blew up once. "In fact, within a month of me getting here, at one point, we announced that we had a deal. Supreme Court struck down a big part of what the deal was based on... so right now, we're reconfiguring some of that text," he told the forum. The current negotiation is a rebuild, not a finish line.

Tariffs and Russia sanctions are already biting

While Gor talks up trade optimism, actual tariff friction is escalating on the ground. A US tariff-rate quota on quartz surface products took effect August 15, imposing duties from 19% to 50% over four years depending on volume, according to stratnewsglobal. India has sought consultations at the World Trade Organization over the measure.

Separately, a White House report released this month names India among countries it says are being used to route Chinese goods around US tariffs, per stratnewsglobal. The report doesn't accuse Indian exporters generally of fraud, but it raises the odds of tougher customs scrutiny on Indian shipments that use Chinese components or machinery. This is a real problem given how much of India's manufacturing base still depends on Chinese inputs.

Then there's Russia. The US Senate passed the bipartisan Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act 86-11, which would let Trump impose tariffs up to 100% on countries buying Russian oil, India included. Gor was careful to separate that from Trump's own position, telling reporters the tariff push is "being pushed by the Congress in a very bipartisan way," but not something Trump himself is pushing, according to Newsbytes App.

The Kashmir remark that set off Pakistan

Gor's diplomatic balancing act got harder after he became the first serving US ambassador to make a standalone visit to Indian-administered Kashmir since 2019, spending two days in Srinagar and Ladakh starting August 19. Standing next to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Gor called the territory "an important part of India" and said Washington was reviewing its "Do Not Travel" advisory for the region, citing improved security, according to Al Jazeera.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry summoned the US Charge d'Affaires in Islamabad, Natalie Baker, the same evening and lodged what it called a "strong demarche" rejecting the characterization of the territory, Al Jazeera reported. Islamabad has long insisted Kashmir is disputed territory, a position rooted in UN resolutions from the 1940s that predate any current US administration.

Security and defense ties between Washington and New Delhi keep deepening, even as economic friction over tariffs, Russian oil, and China-linked trade routing piles up at the same time, according to stratnewsglobal. Gor's remark represents a genuine tilt toward New Delhi on a subject Washington has typically stayed neutral on for decades. Pakistan's reaction reflects a country that has been actively courting Trump's administration on other fronts, including crypto and minerals deals, according to Tatsat Chronicle.

What's actually unresolved

None of the trade deal text has been made public. Gor's own account confirms a previous agreement collapsed after a Supreme Court ruling gutted its legal basis. Reporting doesn't specify which court or which ruling, so the reasons for the setback remain unclear from these accounts. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to return to India in October for another multi-day visit, following a five-day trip in May, according to Newsbytes App.

Whether the "almost done" trade deal actually closes before the 2030 target, and whether Washington's tilt toward India on Kashmir survives the next round of tariff disputes with Islamabad courting favor of its own, are both open questions with no fixed date attached in any of the current reporting.