India achieves 50% of FY25 export levels to US in first five months of FY26: Goyal

NEW DELHI : India’s Exports to the United States has already crossed $40 billion in the first five months of 2025-26, Commerce Minister Shri Piyush Goyal said in an interview to Network 18 on September 4.

“From April-August, our exports to the US have already crossed $40 or $43 billion, it was $86 billion last fiscal year and we still have seven months to go,” Goyal said, adding that reciprocal tariffs have not been imposed across the board, it is only on 55-60 percent of Indian exports.

While the US doubled tariffs to 50 percent on most Indian goods after an additional 25 percent kicked in from August 27, key exports such as pharmaceuticals, petroleum and electronic goods are exempted from steeper duties, for now.

This makes up roughly $28 billion of New Delhi’s total outbound shipment to American shores amounting to $86.51 billion in FY25. Indian exporters have rushed their US-bound shipments ahead of the August 27 tariff deadline when tariffs doubled. Exports to America have risen around 22 percent on-year till July in the current fiscal, which is higher than the trend growth rate of 17-18 percent.

India’s merchandise trade deficit for July widened to an eight-month high of $27.35 billion from $18.78 billion in June, official data showed, with both exports and imports up on-year by 7.3 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.

The trade figures for August will be officially released on September 15. Goyal added that he does not see a significant impact of the tariffs on India’s GDP growth and bets on overall exports in FY26 crossing last year’s level. India’s total exports touched an all-time high of $824.9 billion in FY25 over $778.1 billion in 2023-24, while the finance ministry expects GDP to grow in the range of 6.3-6.8 percent in the current financial year.