U.S. Says It Won’t Impose Trade Sanctions on India

WASHINGTON — The White House has decided not to impose trade sanctions against India in retaliation for that country’s refusal to ease restrictions on foreign investment and on U.S. insurance companies, Bush Administration officials said Wednesday.

The Administration last year cited India--with Brazil and Japan--for maintaining unfair trade practices, giving all three a year to negotiate individual settlements or face possible U.S. retaliation. Japan and Brazil both offered some concessions, but India refused.

U.S. Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills is expected to announce Friday that the Administration still regards India’s trade barriers as unreasonable but that it has decided to take them up in the global trade-liberalization talks now going on in Geneva rather than impose direct penalties.

White House officials feared that penalizing India now would jeopardize support for U.S. objectives in the global talks among other developing countries. The cases against Japan and Brazil were dropped after they agreed to reduce some of their barriers.