New Delhi: Under the Indo-US ‘trade deal’ that President Donald Trump first announced on Monday, India will eliminate tariffs on ‘virtually all’ industrial goods as well as agri-food items including tree nuts, wines, spirits, fruits and vegetables but would retain protections on some agricultural products, Washington’s top trade negotiator has said.Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday (February 3) at a time when no details of the deal have otherwise been made public, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that the deal is still being ‘papered’ but that “we know the specifics” and “we know the details”.India would also reduce tariffs on chemicals and medical devices while the US would maintain an 18% levy as announced by Trump, said Greer. The two sides have agreed that New Delhi will adopt a “process for recognising certain US standards” as part of lowering technical non-tariff trade barriers, he added.He also said “there are a lot of opportunities” for India to diversify its oil supplies to include more crude from Venezuela and the Gulf relative to Russia.Earlier in the day Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal, who did not offer any details of the deal, said that it would “protect [the] interests of our sensitive sectors of agriculture and dairy” and that a joint statement would be issued “shortly”.Neither side has issued an official communique on the deal.Greer on Tuesday described the deal as a “very exciting opportunity” for both countries.“On the one hand we will continue to maintain some level of tariff against India – 18% – because we have this giant trade deficit with them, but they’ve also agreed to reduce their tariffs for us on a variety of agricultural products, manufactured goods, chemicals, medical devices, etc,” he said in an interview to CNBC’s Joe Kernen.Asked about the extent of Indian tariff lines that would go to “zero” as suggested by Trump, Greer said Indian levies on “virtually everything” among industrial goods, i.e. 98% to 99% of these products, would be done away with.As for agriculture there is “a vast array” of goods that would see an elimination of tariffs, he said. “India, like every country in the world, including the United States, has some protection around some certain key areas. Well, they’ll continue to control that, we’ll continue to work on access, but for a variety of things: tree nuts, wines, spirits, fruits, vegetables, etc., they’re going down to zero.”Indian resistance to the Trump administration’s insistence that it open up its highly protected agriculture sector was reported to be a key stumbling block in the trade talks that both sides began in February last year, with New Delhi unwilling to grant concessions for corn, soybeans, wheat and dairy, which Greer notably did not mention on Tuesday.New Delhi has protected agricultural and dairy products, including nuts, fruits and vegetables in some cases, from its recent free trade agreements with other countries.The two sides also reached an agreement on reducing non-tariff trade barriers, Greer said. India is to have a “process for recognising certain US standards” – which are “effective” and “sometimes too effective” – that would go through its “own processes” before being finalised.On the president’s suggestion that India could buy Venezuelan oil in lieu of Russian crude, Greer reiterated the Trump administration’s argument that Indian purchases of Russian oil are fuelling Moscow’s war effort. The Indians are “winding down their purchase of Russian oil” and “we’ve been monitoring that”, he said.“Obviously, they want to diversify from other sources, too, whether it’s Venezuela or the Gulf, etc. There are a lot of opportunities to do this. The Indians are making the right choice,” the trade representative added.Trump announced the trade deal on Monday night, saying that Washington would reduce its ‘reciprocal’ tariff from 25% to 18% while India would “move forward to reduce their Tariffs and Non Tariff Barriers against the United States to ZERO”. New Delhi would also buy US goods, including energy, agricultural products and technology worth a whopping $500 billion, he claimed.He also claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil and “[buying] much more from the United States and potentially Venezuela”. A US embassy spokesperson confirmed on Monday that the US’s 25% ‘penalty’ tariff on India’s procurement of Russian crude would cease to exist.Responding to the president’s announcement over forty minutes later, Modi welcomed the tariff reduction but mentioned neither a trade deal nor any Indian concessions.Reuters on Tuesday cited Indian refining sources as saying that India cannot replace its Russian oil imports wholesale with Venezuelan crude. The heavy South American oil can be processed in large volumes only by Reliance and Nayara and not state refiners, they added.