A trade deal between India and the US would likely take some time but will materialise by the fall 2025, according to a Morgan Stanley report released on Tuesday. While India is exposed to direct tariff risks, the country is less exposed to global goods trade slowdown considering that it has the lowest goods exports to GDP ratio in Asia. The report highlighted that significant uncertainty still remains on the quantum of the tariff increase that India would be subjected to given the US administration has yet to fully clarify how reciprocal tariffs would be imposed, it said. It added that India is among the more exposed economies to further tariff escalation (i.e. reciprocal tariffs) within Asia given India imposes very high tariff rates on select imports, existence of high non-tariff barriers and the size of its goods trade surplus with the US. President Trump has indicated he will likely impose tariffs on this product category which account for 2.8% of overall exports and 0.3% of GDP, the report added. It also noted that under the WTO agreements, countries cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners. But the agreements only permit these exceptions under strict conditions.