External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said that any trade agreement between India and the United States must respect New Delhi’s “red lines”.

His remark came amid tensions between New Delhi and Washington over US’ decision to impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods and punitive levies for purchasing Russian oil. He has repeatedly alleged that India’s imports were fuelling Russia’s war in Ukraine. The combined tariff rate for India is 50%.

Speaking at an event in New Delhi, Jaishankar acknowledged that differences with the US continue because “we have not arrived at a landing ground for our trade discussions”.

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“The inability so far to reach there has led to a certain tariff being levied on India,” he said.

The external affairs minister described the additional tariff on India for Russian oil purchases as “very unfair”.

“[The punitive tariff] has picked on us for sourcing energy from Russia when there are other countries that have done so, including those that right now have a far more antagonistic relationship with Russia than we do,” he said.

Jaishankar added that a trade understanding with the US was necessary, as it is the world’s largest market and that “much of the world has reached those understandings”.

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“But it has to be an understanding where our bottom lines, our red lines are respected,” he said. “In any agreement, there are things you can negotiate and there are things you can’t.”

Trade talks between the two countries have gained fresh momentum.

On September 23, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal met US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in New York to accelerate negotiations.

This came after a team led by Brendan Lynch, the chief negotiator for the India-US Bilateral Trade Agreement, met Indian officials in New Delhi on September 15.

Read more: From Quad to trade, Trump’s fight with India could ripple out