Piyush Goyal Speaks On GST Reforms, US Trade Talks, And More | Full Text

Last Updated:September 05, 2025, 00:20 IST

On Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “dead economy” remark, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal called it “baseless, ill-informed and disconnected from ground realities”

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal speaks to Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi. (Image: News18)

In a wide-ranging interview with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal spoke about the Narendra Modi-led government’s mega GST reforms, the intense tariff tussle and stalled trade deal negotiations between India and the United States, as well as the Prime Minister’s promotion of swadeshi.

Taking a swipe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi echoing the Trump administration’s “dead economy” narrative, he called it “baseless, ill-informed and disconnected from ground realities”.

ALSO READ: Piyush Goyal Lauds ‘Transformative’ GST Reforms, Says US Trade Talks On | Top Points

Here is a full transcript of the interview:

Piyush ji, thank you so much for giving Network18 this exclusive interview. Welcome to the show. What a day to be interviewing you. The government has announced historic reforms – GST rationalisation. First question: all this started with the Prime Minister’s address on Independence Day on August 15 when he spoke about atmanirbharta. He framed it in the context of swadeshi, quality drive. He gave a hint to us on that day that big reforms are coming. Your first reactions on this GST rationalisation.

I’d like to compliment Prime Minister Modi for taking this bold decision. I see this as the most transforming step the nation has seen possibly in the last 56 years. This is a journey that Prime Minister Narendra Modi started right in 2014. Back then, he spoke about making in India. He was conscious that ultimately, we will have to become self-reliant. He promoted Digital India. He promoted Startup India. Swachhta was at the core of his working. He started the concept of trusting the people of India. One of the first decisions was: you don’t need to notarise a document. Remember when you spent money, go and plead with somebody? For him, ease of doing business is the pathway to a developed economy and ease of living is a commitment to the people of India to ensure wider prosperity and inclusive growth.

These decisions yesterday happened after a sustained 11-year journey of taking a broken and Fragile 5 economy among the top five economies of the world – it’s soon to become the third largest by 2027. An economy that was low on growth, high on inflation, an economy that was starved of foreign exchange with a completely broken banking system. An economy where there was no hope, investments were falling. Our passport had no respect anywhere in the world. Inheriting that economy from the Congress, Prime Minister Modi, brick by brick and step by step, brought reforms.

He showed that he trusted the people of India, focused on better quality of life for the poorest of the poor through various initiatives, brought social security into their lives, got 25 crore people out of poverty, and faced the crisis of Covid without letting the economy collapse, as was the case in many other developed nations. In fact, we bounced back so well that for four years now we are the fastest-growing large economy.

Last quarter, GDP growth was 7.8% growth, with only 1.55% inflation. Who could have imagined that in a decade this country will transform so rapidly, so beautifully – and a foundation will be created on which a $4-trillion economy now aims to become a $30 trillion economy by 2047? That, I think, is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s very astute handling of the economy. These transformative steps that he had alluded to in his August 15 address, are, of course, the labour of love. It’s happened over many months of hard work. The finance ministry, Nirmalaji (Nirmala Sitharaman), the groups of ministers from the states, the groups of secretaries – all working and recognising that now compensation cess will not be required. We got the elbow room to be able to give this huge bonanza and also give our consumers the opportunity to spend more and give a boost to the Indian economy.

We will discuss all these points one by one. But first, let’s stay with GST for a moment. There were also income tax cuts for the middle-class in the last budget, followed by the rationalisation of GST, a long-standing demand. Like you said it had taken months of work. How confident are you that this is going to spur demand, spur consumption, and eventually investment?

It’s very logical. Take for example the reduction in cement from 28% to 18%. It suddenly brings down the cost of real estate and building a home. Prime Minister Modi has already provided a free home to 4 crore brothers and sisters – families in the country. Another two crores more in the coming 4-5 years. A reduction in cement price also helps the middle-class own an affordable home. When you reduce the price for tractors, tractor parts and all other farm equipment, you are helping the farmer modernise, helping him improve his productivity.

When you make two-wheelers cheaper, the aspirational middle-class, the young men and women who want to have a two-wheeler are encouraged and able to afford to a two-wheeler – with interest rates also simultaneously coming down, thanks to low inflation and loans becoming cheaper and easily available in a strong banking system that we have today. It’s not what we had in 2014. When a housewife goes to the market, almost every product of daily use – all food products, all processed goods, all material that is required for our kitchen – will see a transformational reduction in prices. And industry has committed to us that they will make sure that the full benefit is passed on to the consumers. So, consumers are in for significant gain, and I am very, very confident.

And how are you sure of that? There have been cases of profiteering in the past.

Few and far between. Otherwise, our experience is you can trust industry. Prime Minister Modi’s biggest strength has been that he has trusted industry, and they’ve never let him down. Similarly, the people of India have trusted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and we have never let them down. So, I think it’s a two-way trust factor. Every sector assured the government that they will be with the government. They recognise lower taxes, lower prices will give buoyancy to demand, and higher demand leads to higher taxes. And, ultimately, higher demand also promotes more investment because the demand leads to more manufacturing in India. So, it’s a virtuous cycle of growth and the multiplier impact is what will give India a big boost.

Let us also talk a little bit about the revenue implication that this might have. By one estimate about Rs 48,000 crore would be the revenue impact. Will we be able to take care of this? Do you see any kind of fiscal slip going forward?

Rahulji, we are currently collecting nearly 2 lakh crore every month. And with this boost in demand, the revenue will probably go up.

So you’re expecting some amount of revenue buoyancy.

Hundred per cent. It is always so. And I think every theory, economic theory suggests that. And for that matter, in the Rs 22-24 lakh crore collected in a year, this is hardly a very consequential amount.

If you look at the Q1 GDP numbers at 7.8, it’s a five-quarter high. How do you react to these numbers, especially in the context of someone calling it a “dead economy”?

Well, I think Mr. Rahul Gandhi has been a naysayer and a person who could never understand economics. We have seen that over the years. He sees ghosts where there are none. He cannot appreciate that the people of India are seeing significant improvement in their lives. He has not yet been able to reconcile that the people of India have voted him out three times in a row. It’s a rocket that somehow seems to fail every time it tries to take off. Mr. Rahul Gandhi actually heard the sentiments of 140 crore Indians—who can see the improvement in their lives, who can see that Prime Minister Modi has reduced their income tax, who can see that Prime Minister Modi is providing 80 core Indians with free food grains even after they have come out of poverty, who can see that fertiliser prices haven’t gone up in 11 years because Prime Minister Modi has made sure that any burden of increase in tax prices is borne by the central government.

Prime Minister Modi is a sensitive human being – very, very concerned and caring for the last man at the bottom of the pyramid. Right from Day 1, he worried about their social security. Right from Day 1, he committed his government to the poor, to the marginalised sections. After all, what was Jan Dhan account? He opened the bank doors for every citizen of this country. What was Ayushman Bharat? Finally, everybody above 70 got free health care. Today 62-65 crore brothers and sisters, and everybody above the age of 70 included, are eligible for free health care.

The reduction of GST on premium on life and health policies from 18% to 0 is a massive reduction. The middle-class will be able to buy more insurance and secure their future, their health. So, I think it’s a very concerted effort over the years in a very smart fashion, while making sure the sanctity of the fundamentals of the economy remains strong, while making sure we don’t slip back but only power on for a brighter future for every Indian in India.

I think Prime Minister Modi has clearly shown that good economics can also be equal to good politics. The Congress used to look at very, very low-ambition ideas full of scams and scandals – the Colgate, the telecom scam, the Commonwealth Games scam, and the list goes on and on.

Prime Minister Modi in 11 years has run an honest government. And an honest government will always have money to spare—to give benefit worth over Rs 2 lakh crore in one shot through the reduction of GST.

So will it give some comfort to the markets as well? They have been slightly soft over the last few quarters. Do you think it will also give the markets a reason to celebrate that bold reforms are on the way, that this government is not hesitant to take risks?

I think the market recognises that “we are in safe hands”. They recognise that a decisive strong leader like Prime Minister Modi will always take keep national interests ahead of everything else. And therefore, if you see, while they’ve been a little soft, but they’ve been range-bound – between 24,500 and 25,500. The Nifty has moved. But I am very confident that the impact of this (GST reforms) starting on the first day of Navratri on September 22 will give a big leg-up to the economy, to GDP growth. It will ensure that Indian investments continue to power on, will attract more people to set up base. Ultimately, when there is demand, there will be interest and investment to meet that demand. And a growing demand means growing jobs, growing number of people required in the supply chain. More investments will lead to jobs in the manufacturing side. Services sector is already growing in a double-digit level. The services PMI is at an all-time high almost. So, I think, India is poised for a very bright future. I assure you our exports also this year will be higher than last year’s.

Let me rewind a little bit and come to what you’ve been dealing with. Till July 6-7, things seemed to be going fine with our negotiations with the US. Then in a matter of weeks, we had a tariff of 25%, then another 25% on top of that. What went wrong in these few weeks?

Well, I think the US-India relationship is one of the most consequential relationships in the world today. We are two very large democracies. We believe in the rule of law. We have been allies and friends for long. We have had certain blips; we had the sanctions post the nuclear tests in 1998. I look at this (tariffs) only as one more situation which will pass as there is a deeper understanding of the reality of the situation. I am very confident this relationship will only strengthen in the years to come.

And how soon do you expect things to resolve?

It could happen soon enough or it may take some time. Irrespective, we will continue to be friends, we will continue to be engaged with the United States. I am sure we will continue to have greater economic relationships, defence relationships, greater interests in a safe, fair and secure Indo-Pacific. In some sense, it is a very multidimensional relationship where we contribute to each others’ economies, and will continue to do so.

It’s comforting to hear these words from you. You said somewhere that things could happen as soon as November. Is that correct?

Well, if you recall when Prime Minister Modi and President Donald Trump met in February, they had tasked the two teams to conclude the first tranche of a bilateral trade agreement by the fall of 2025, which is about November. And I am sure we will continue to be engaged to try and find solutions to reach that outcome. A few days, a few weeks, a few months in a nation’s history… such small periods will not define long-term objectives and goals.

I think what’s surprised and even shocked some people was the erratic and incendiary language that was used by some of the officials of the Trump administration — calling it “Modi’s war” or calling India the “laundromat of Kremlin”. How do you react to this? Are conciliatory noises coming from the other side now?

I think they could be either some misunderstandings or some personal opinions that may be reflected in that. I do not think that deters the US and India from continuing to maintain our strategic alliance and partnership. Our friendship is far stronger than a few comments that may be made by a few people.

China in the beginning had retaliated with retaliatory tariffs. Will India do anything like that?

Well, India is a patient country and I believe we should give it every effort to come to a better, deeper understanding within the framework of international trading laws. We have always believed in dialogue and diplomacy and an effort to strengthen rather than weaken relations.

So, President Trump recently said that India has offered to cut tariffs to zero and time is running out. What do you say to that? Do you agree?

Well, I never negotiate such agreements and free trade deals with the media. We negotiate behind closed doors and once the negotiations are complete, we will certainly come back to you.

So, what are the red lines? Which are the no-go areas for you? You know, things that we will not compromise on.

I think any issue that can hurt national interests, that can hurt the interests of our farmers, our fishermen, our MSME industry, issues with religious sensitivity – those would be broadly the issues where India would need an understanding when we finalise the framework of our agreement. And we will never compromise on the interests of our farmers, our fishermen, our MSMEs or our religious sensitivities.

A US court has recently ruled that President Trump has no authority to impose tariffs, including on India. How would that impact our talks?

Those are internal, legal processes in the US and will be sorted out by the US government. We have no role to play in that. But ours is an effort to reach a far more sustaining and long-term, fair, equitable and mutually beneficial agreement.

Let’s move to some of your priority areas. Take us through some of the things that you are doing, for instance, the Jan Vishwas Bill. Can you throw some light on that? What is the priority for you and the government at the moment?

The honourable Prime Minister from Day 1 has been focused on making the life of businesses and common people simpler and easier. If you recall, a simple thing like notarising a Xerox copy…he removed the need to go to a notary and get a stamp and signature and pay Rs 25 to get that certificate. Prime Minister Modi just did away with it. He said I trust my people. If they are signing that this is a true copy of the original, I trust them. If you recall, there have been so many scandals and people have been in jail for scandals around government jobs. In Prime Minister Modi’s regime, there have been no such scandals because he simplified and made the whole process transparent. For example, now Class-III employees don’t have to go through an interview. It’s merit-based on their written exam and their academic performance that they can get a job. The whole nation today has the confidence that when you desire a government job or a job in the railways or a PSU, you will not be discriminated against. This honesty in government has helped us earn the trust of the people and Prime Minister Modi has always trusted industry, business, entrepreneurs, youth, people of India, and the citizens of India.

And, therefore, throughout his tenure, he has tried to decriminalise laws. For small misdemeanours, you don’t need to go to jail. You know there was a law at one point of time that if an employee of the Delhi municipal corporation, say a sewage cleaning employee or an employee involved in swachhta, was absent for one month, he could go to jail for that. These obsolete laws needed to be addressed and he has removed over 1,500 obsolete laws. We have identified many more that we plan to remove. He has decriminalised several sections and provisions of the law through the Jan Vishwas Bill, which is working admirably. Now, we have come out with a second Jan Vishwas Bill, which is a two-way vishwas. The government trusts the people of India because the people of India trust Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, and it is that trust which encourages us. The second Jan Vishwas Bill already has 355 provisions being decriminalised and he has directed us to look for more; you will be happy to know my department has already identified 500 more that can be decriminalised.

Similarly, we are looking at reducing compliance burden, making processes and procedures simpler, reducing paperwork, bringing things online. The idea is that businesses focus on their business, industry focuses on industry, traders focus on giving good service to their consumers, making it easier to do business. Similarly, make the life of the common citizen easier, happier, more self-satisfying, and more contained. And I think ease of living is also at the core of the GST reform.

What is your message to the exporters? The real pain in the short term is being felt by them. Will you make it somewhat possible for them to sell in India? Will it be a possibility, and what steps are you taking?

Fortunately, the timing of the GST reduction at such massive levels couldn’t have been better. This will give a big impetus to domestic demand, which will help some of the exporters who may lose a part of their business.

Will you make it easier for them to do so?

We are trying to make connects, so, for example, when I recognise that the garment industry could face some stress, I called up the Tatas, who run the Zudio and Westside. And I’m going to be talking to all other high street malls or large-scale retail outlets to see if they can help these garment exporters by buying their products and making them available at affordable prices. So, high quality at affordable prices and, now at reduced GST rates, will make it a great story…

So, you will remove the restrictions on them.

Absolutely, we are trying to make it easier that they can supply in the domestic market. It’s a part of one of the reforms we are working on. Similarly, our missions are working in 50 countries, which we have identified through data analytics and artificial intelligence on the data of import and export of all other nations to identify where our products, which will need a market, can be offered. And in view of that, what we can buy from those countries who will also be stressed similarly.

So, for example, the UAE minister and I over our meetings on Friday and Saturday (August 29 and 30) last week, identified people and areas. He already connected us with his people there who can help our textile sector, get an entry into the Gulf and into all of Africa. He sent me connects with the seafood industry there. I am mounting a delegation to visit the UAE to connect with those people. On (September) 18 and 19, we have the high-level task force on investments. I’ll go to the UAE, where I will be taking a large business delegation. We will be looking at fast-tracking our free trade agreements in other regions. We are doing a second tranche in Australia, we’ll soon announce the closure of Oman and then New Zealand by the end of the year. My commerce secretary was in Brussels the past two days. Their teams are down on Monday (September 8) for the next round of negotiations. The trade commissioner of the European Union, Maros Sefcovic, will be in India on September 11 and will be spending three days to speed up and conclude the European Union FTA. So, I have the four-nation FTA with Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, which comes into effect on October 1. As soon as Navratri gets over or on the last day of Navratri, we will have the agreement come into force. The UK deal has been executed, Oman will be announced; Chile, Peru, Eurasia terms of reference are finalised by October 4, 5, or 6. The Prime Minister of Singapore is in India today, we had lunch and extensive discussions with their teams to see what we can do and they have already committed to take in more chicken, eggs, and poultry. I talked to them about seafood and they said we love the taste of Indian fish and shrimp. So I told my high commissioner, who returns tomorrow, to put together a group of seafood importers and I’ll mount a delegation to Singapore very soon. Similarly, Latin America, huge potential for our exporters. So, the sky is the limit. This will help us expand and, as I said earlier, exports this year will be higher than last year.

How do you say that? The various estimates are that exports are $90 billion and they will probably come down to $50 billion. We, in fact, informally chatted about it. So, how much have we achieved so far? And, what is the target?

Sometimes I wonder at all these so-called experts and economists, friends from the media, coming up with such calculations, which I would say would have otherwise been ridiculed as elementary mistakes. You know, that famous ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’, this is that moment. We’ve already had five-year figures in our hand from April to August. Even to the United States, our exports have already crossed $40 billion or $43 billion, which was $86 billion last year and we still have seven months to go. The reciprocal tariffs are not across the board. There are about 55 or 60 percent of the exports.

Similarly, newer trading arrangements are coming into play. Newer markets are opening up. The actions on tariffs are on many other countries, which opens up the opportunity for them to provide us some goods that we may require in return for taking from us the goods that they require. So I am already, that is what I alluded to, we are looking at 50 nations where we have trade complementarity. So services exports continue to grow across the world. The US is a very small share of our services exports. So, I think we are in a sweet spot. Tourism is growing; international tourists are coming in large numbers. I am very confident that our exports this year will be more than last year.

Any impact on GDP? By various estimates, people are saying 10 basis points to about 100 basis points could be the impact on GDP.

Well, anybody who said 100 basis points, I think you should really bring them onto your show and ask him to justify.

Do you think that?

India is predominantly a domestic economy. Our exports as part of our overall GDP are still relatively small and our imports are much larger. So net imports are actually deflating the Indian GDP group. Keeping that in mind, I’ll give you a comparable; during Covid, we saw exports fall because of the overall world situation. Do you know that imports fell far more than exports and we actually ended up with a trade surplus during Covid? So, the Indian economy is a very complex economy and, therefore, I do not think that the impact on the GDP will be significant. Whatever little impact it could have and, drill it down, to the goods affected by GDP. Within that, you will find gems and jewels, which is $13 billion, its value addition is still very small and it’s an area where I am looking for alternate markets in the Gulf and the eastern part of the world. So, we will be able to make it up. Several products, which will have a huge increase, are in demand domestically will make up for that. The value add if you seek holistically on the total exports impacted by one nation’s action is not significant enough to hurt the Indian GDP story, which is the world’s fastest growing large GDP.

I am very confident that collectively, with the effort of 140 crore Indians now committed to Swadeshi, very charged that I will buy goods made in India and, Prime Minister Modi has very nicely defined it. He said: ‘Desh ki mitti mein bana maal aur desh ke hamare bhai behno ke khoon paseena se bana maal, which means goods made on Indian soil by the sweat and toil of our Indian labour force’. The ownership doesn’t matter. Let the investment come from all over the world as long as it adds jobs, economic activity in India, it’s a made-in-India product. And, by the way, if you see Prime Minister Modi’s work, you will see that it is the vision and mission of Mahatma Gandhi, who wanted swachhta. For years, the nation yearned for that swachhta, desired it but never saw it. We would trace Singapore, other parts of the world, Europe, America, UAE, but nobody did anything about swachhta until Prime Minister Modi came into power. Mahatma Gandhi’s mission was swachhta. Mahatma Gandhi wanted everybody to have a decent place for their daily routines. Modi built 12 crore toilets, took a toilet to every school, every college so that nobody has to face the indignity of going into the fields for their daily routines. Mahatma Gandhi always spoke about swadeshi. He actually built the freedom movement around swadeshi. Lokmanya Tilak was a big proponent of swadeshi and always wore khadi. Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, they all promoted khadi. After independence, the first Prime Minister to promote khadi, or rather I would say the second after Lal Bahadur Shastri, is Prime Minister Modi. He has relentlessly promoted khadi, been in the pursuit of swadeshi and, now, the nation has risen as one to promote swadeshi.

I appeal through your channel. All our Indian brothers and sisters, all viewers of Network18, please commit yourself to swadeshi. Please commit yourself to buying made-in-India goods. Whatever may have happened in the past is fine, at least in the future let’s all go for swadeshi.

Just a couple of more questions, one around our new friend, newfound friend, China. So Prime Minister Modi in Japan said that China and India have to come together for a new global economic order. Can we trust China?

Well, I think we’ve always had good relations over many years with China. Prime Minister Modi has visited China earlier, President Xi Jinping has come to India. Unfortunately, the incidents post-Galwan had brought a little bit of ice to the relationship, created a hiatus. Now that we have been largely able to resolve the issues of disagreement with China, I think it was very natural that we should also reset our ties, take them to the pre-Galwan level. And I think attending an SCO summit where many countries were all getting together had a multilateral dimension, also, and a dimension of a whole grouping, because SCO is a pretty large group, just like many other groups in the world. NATO is a very large group, the OECD countries is a large group, SCO is a large group. And Prime Minister Modi attending the SCO there has signalled that we have a thaw really in the frost, getting back into a better relationship. India believes in good relationships with everybody in the world. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. The world is our family is at the core of our philosophy.

It was a huge message, Prime Minister’s visit, his coming together with Putin and Xi Jinping.

I would only urge you and the people of India not to look at the relationship with one country through the lens of the relationship with another country. Our relationships with each country stand on their own legs.

I was coming to the point that we have a huge trade deficit with China. So how do we ensure greater access to Indian goods and services?

Prime Minister Modi has raised this issue in his dialogue with his counterpart in China, and we would be looking to work together to see how we can expand opportunities for Indian businesses in China and how we can work to collaborate and work together to see that the Make in India program and Swadeshi manufacturing gets a boost in the years to come.

So by the same token, Press Note 3 puts fetters on Chinese investments in India. So, with relations improving, do you see any changes in press Note 3?

Well, I would allow time to take the decision. I would not like to preempt what will happen in the future. But I can assure you that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking at everything that can help ease of doing business and ease of living. He’s looking at it very holistically for comprehensive, fast-paced next-generation reforms and the massive GST concessions, the massive GST reduction, the transformational story around yesterday’s GST decisions is only the beginning of much more to come.

Couple of more questions, small questions. You know, in light of this trade diversification going forward is really important for India. So you’ve recently done a big deal with with UK. What is in the works with EU, that we can hope for.

Rapid progress, very rapid progress. My Commerce Secretary has returned yesterday. He reported that discussions made good progress, and a lot of work has happened. Their team is here in the same office next door. You will have 8 rooms full of bilateral meetings going on for settling many chapters, many legal aspects and issues of discussion over the whole of next week. The Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is landing in India on 11th. We have 3 days of very, very intense discussions ahead of us, and we are very confident of having a very good, fair equitable, balanced, and sustaining long-term relationship with the EU.

And soon.

Quite soon.

My last question, does it worry you that the rupee is at an all-time low against the dollar? Scott Bessent also referred to it recently. How would you react to that?

Well, we are monitoring the situation and we are very confident that things will get back to normal in the near future.

Thank you, Piyush-ji, thank you for your time. Thank you for a discussion on a range of issues and on a day, you know, when we have just had this major GST rationalisation. Like you said, [it’s] one of the most monumental reforms of the Modi government. Thank you so much.

And one of the most monumental and transformational reforms since Independence.

Point taken. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d…Read More

The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d… Read More

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