India-US trade talks hit ‘plateau’

India and US have reached a “plateau” in negotiations over their bilateral trade agreement, with further concessions from either side likely to be "very very difficult", finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. Speaking at the Munich Leaders Meeting in New Delhi, she said that while negotiations are still underway, any progress from here would depend on whether there was limited room for compromise on either side.“The agreement negotiations are still ongoing, although we'd like to believe that both the sides have reached a plateau beyond which giving or taking might be very, very difficult. But maybe if there are rooms to operate from, both sides would do it,” Sitharaman said.She said the agreement was still being “hard and very rigorously negotiated” and that India has a trade surplus with the US. “But what is the predominant feature of the trade relations between India and the US?