The Deal-Closer

India’s Commerce Minister has turned marathon trade talks into a muscular instrument of statecraft.

At first glance, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal does not resemble the romantic idea of a trade negotiator. There is little of the bonhomie of Geneva salons about him, less still of the lyrical globalism that once animated India’s approach to free trade. Yet it is precisely this flinty and transactional temperament that has delivered what both he and Brussels call the “mother of all deals” - the sweeping and long-awaited free-trade agreement (FTA) between India and the European Union that was recently concluded after nearly two decades of false starts, stalled chapters and diplomatic fatigue.

Trade, Goyal insists, is not about elegant texts but about outcomes on factory floors and balance sheets. The EU–India FTA – a crowning achievement by any measure - reflects that philosophy. India will see nearly 99 percent of its exports by value enter Europe tariff-free, many from day one. The EU, by contrast, gets access to around 96.6 percent of its exports to India, phased in over seven to ten years. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, lavished fulsome praise on Goyal and the speed and toughness with which he closed 20 of the most contentious chapters in the landmark deal.

Perhaps the most quietly significant victory of this deal lies in services. The EU has opened 144 subsectors including IT, banking and shipping to Indian professionals, a major mobility gain at a time when migration politics is tightening across Europe. India has offered visa facilitation in return, but retained tight controls. On climate, Goyal has refused to bend quickly. While India did not secure an outright exemption from the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the Minister ensured that India bought itself crucial time to prepare its industries.

Predictably, shrill critics in the opposition Congress, notably Jairam Ramesh, have accused the government of overselling the agreement, pointing to the absence of CBAM exemptions and warning of tariff concessions to Europe. Goyal’s rebuttal has been characteristically blunt. In a precise and withering retort to Ramesh, Goyal observed the deal was not a zero-sum pact but a mutually beneficial one between two largely complementary economies together representing $25trn of GDP, $11trn of trade and nearly two billion people. Is zero duty on $33bn worth of India’s labour-intensive exports really hype? Goyal asked the Congressman.

The question hints at Goyal’s political instincts. Unlike some of his technocratic predecessors in the BJP, he is as comfortable jousting on social media as he is parsing tariff schedules. A chartered accountant by training and the son of a former Union minister, he entered politics through the BJP’s organisational ranks. His reputation within the Modi government rests on a combination of ideological alignment and administrative grip.

Under his watch, India’s trade policy has shed its reflexive defensiveness without embracing naïve openness. Goyal walked away from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in 2019, arguing that it threatened Indian manufacturing. Since then, he has pursued a string of targeted bilateral deals. In November 2025 he concluded a comprehensive FTA with New Zealand, granting zero-duty access on 100 percent of tariff lines for Indian exports from day one. The agreement goes well beyond goods: it covers education, research, tourism, sports and services, and provides work visas for 5,000 yoga instructors, chefs, nurses and AYUSH professionals. New Zealand has opened 118 services sectors; India’s textile exporters alone gain zero-duty access across more than 1,000 tariff lines.

What ties these deals together is an emphasis on execution. Goyal has pushed initiatives such as the National Quality Conclave run with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade to embed quality at the shopfloor level, particularly for small and medium-sized firms. Trade agreements, he argues, are only as good as a country’s ability to meet standards consistently. Quality, in his telling, must become part of India’s institutional DNA.

The EU agreement is expected to come into force by the end of 2026. Optimists predict millions of new jobs in textiles alone. Sceptics warn of adjustment pains, especially as carbon rules bite. But Goyal is unapologetic. For too long, he says, India paid the price of inaction by losing jobs, markets and time. This deal, and others like it, mark a turn outward, on India’s terms.

In an era of weaponised trade and fractured globalisation, Goyal’s most lasting achievement could well be proving that a developing country can negotiate hard, protect its red lines and still integrate with the world.