A day after India and the European Union announced the conclusion of a free trade agreement (FTA), the much-delayed India-US trade deal is close to being fructified and is “progressing well”.Top government sources said “robust negotiations are ongoing” and that the India-US deal has made very significant progress. “We are very close to seeing it fructified. Even as the EU deal was being finalised, we were in touch with US negotiators,” the sources said.Although both India and the EU face a belligerent US President Donald Trump, the two sides made no mention of the US negotiations during the FTA announcement. “We concluded the India-EU deal in the mutual interest of both parties. It was not about showing any one-upmanship, nor was it a knee-jerk reaction to geopolitical developments,” the sources said.India’s exports to the EU are nearly $76 billion, just behind the $86 billion exported to the US, making the bloc a key market for Indian goods.Sources said concluding an FTA with the EU was challenging as the two sides were at different levels of development and several differences had to be bridged. Successive FTAs signed by India have opened markets in multiple areas, particularly in the non-agriculture sector, enabling deeper integration with global economies through quotas and other concessions.On the India-EU agreement, sources said a breakthrough came when negotiators agreed not to remain stuck on sensitivities. “Our sensitivities were accommodated to the extent that we found a landing zone that meets their requirements without disturbing ours,” they said.On market access, sources said the EU had offered India services market access comparable to what the UK enjoys. In labour-intensive services, where India’s exports are valued at $33.5 billion, tariffs will fall to zero from an average of around 10 per cent.In automobiles, India has phased tariff reductions over 10 years to allow domestic industry time to build capacity and compete. EU carmakers will get meaningful access in the high-end segment. There will be no tariff concessions for cars priced up to Rs 25 lakh, which account for nearly 90 per cent of India’s domestic market. For cars priced between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 60 lakh, EU firms will get access under a quota system, while the largest tariff reductions will apply to cars priced above Rs 60 lakh.