New Delhi: US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday that India remains ‘a tough nut to crack’ when it comes to agriculture. However, he remained optimistic that the two sides will be able to find mutually agreed common ground. He told that to a congressional committee, amid a three-day visit of Indian trade delegation led by chief negotiator Darpan Jain in Washington for the first face-to-face talks in six months.

Greer was replying to Congressman Randy Feenstra at the House during a hearing on the Trump administration’s 2026 trade policy agenda. When asked about the discussions on agriculture with India, Greer said, “Yes, so you’ll know that we have a joint framework agreement with India that we signed that sets out the general terms of our agreement. The Indian trade negotiators are in town this week. So we’ve been talking this week about these issues including about these specific commodities you talked about—DDGs etc.”

He added, “India is a tough nut to crack. They’ve protected their agricultural markets for a very long time. As part of this deal, they’re going to want to protect a lot of that still. There are things though where I think we can find mutual agreement. DDGs is a good example of this.” Also, he confirmed that the negotiations are currently going on.

India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said on Thursday that “both sides are working towards a balanced, mutually beneficial and forward-looking trade agreement, taking into account each other’s concerns and priorities, and to achieve a trade target of $500 billion by 2030.”