Forging the Final Consensus: Analysing the India-UK FTA From the PMO’s Perspective

The governments of India and the United Kingdom announced a landmark Free Trade Agreement with symmetry on 6 May 2025 and formally signed this agreement on 24 July 2025. Throughout this process, India’s Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) played a critical and often informal role in providing strategic coordination, direction, and oversight to the international significance of this event.

Illustration by The Geostrata

By illuminating the PMO’s role, we gain insight into how the high-level policy machinery supports and shapes trade diplomacy.

STRUCTURING THE POLITICAL AGENDA AND PROVIDING STRATEGIC DIRECTION

At the outset of the FTA process, the PMO made it clear that the FTA would be elevated to a political level as opposed to simply a technical process. The official PMO read-out justified the agreement as one that would “significantly enhance bilateral trade, create new pathways for employment, increase standards of living, and improve overall well-being for citizens in both countries.”

The PMO thus ensured that negotiating teams understood the overarching goals of the deal as being not only economic but also strategic: advancing India’s global integration, improving bilateral relations with the UK, and representing a broader external-economic policy goal for the government.

For instance, a PMO statement explained that the FTA “cements the strong foundations of the India-UK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.” Thus, the role of the PMO was to frame the FTA under a broader vision, a mandate that negotiating ministries and officials were obligated to operate under.

INTER-AGENCY COORDINATION AND TASK SETTING

Trade agreements such as the India–UK FTA span various government ministries: commerce, external affairs, finance, industry and investment/promotion, services, labour, and many others. In cases like these, the PMO is the coordinating focal point. For example, in the general coverage of Indian FTAs, it is noted that “the PMO also coordinated with all the inter-ministerial ministries, cabinets and committees to discuss, revise and approve the formal negotiation”. 

In this instance, the PMO helped ensure that all relevant stakeholders were aligned with the same values. For example, protecting sensitive sectors, facilitating mobility of professionals, putting mechanisms in place to facilitate investment, and regulatory harmonization.

The PMO provided press releases that encapsulated those values. E.g., the agreement included independent professional mobility and addressed non-tariff barriers. Without the PMO’s coordinating role, the intricate quilt of ministerial responsibilities, bureaucratic approvals, policy trade-offs and international diplomacy may devolve.

DEFINING RED LINES, PRIORITIES AND NEGOTIATING ENVELOPE

Setting the commitment limits and expectations of the negotiating team was another essential role of the PMO in this FTA. The PMO guided the negotiating team regarding what was negotiable, what was vital to safeguard, which sectors were sensitive, and how much liberalization was acceptable. The PM went so far as to say that the FTA was “balanced, equitable and ambitious”, indicating that liberalization would accompany the protection of core Indian interests.

When the PMO articulates the deal in this manner, it clearly establishes for the negotiating team their limits of what constitutes an acceptable safeguard, while also purporting a message to other ministries (in this case, agriculture, pharmaceuticals or textiles) that their concerns would also be heard and taken into account.

This is particularly critical in an FTA in a multi-ministry democracy where different departmental interests are often competing. In this sense, the PMO also plays the role of strategic arbitrator.

HIGH-LEVEL DIPLOMACY, SIGNALLING AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

When it was time for a formal signing and public diplomacy, the PMO’s prominence was notably amplified. For example, a joint press statement issued under the India–UK FTA emphasized that “the conclusion of a balanced, equitable and ambitious FTA … is expected to significantly enhance bilateral trade, generate new avenues for employment”, was issued by the PMO.

Parallelly, the PMO enabled political signalling: the fact that Narendra Modi and Keir Starmer met, the public representation of the deal as historic and beneficial, all indicate strong alignment between the two processes, absolutely supporting one another.

The PMO’s social media channels themselves published key quotes from the Prime Minister’s statement.

In this way, the PMO is ensuring that the public narrative aligns with the strategic objectives; not merely completing the deal, but framing the future impacts and benefits for exporters, youth, MSMEs, farmers, fisheries, and related areas.

IMPLEMENTATION OVERSIGHT AND FOLLOW-UP

Signing the FTA merely marks the beginning of an extensive implementation and compliance monitoring phase, and readiness at the domestic level (customs, rules of origin, alignment of regulations, industry readiness, exports, etc.). The PMO’s role as secretariat to the prime minister does offer oversight in this phase of deal-making.

In the India-UK case, the PMO has laid out a specific vision for FTA: instead of merely trading with each other, India and the UK are to act as collaborators, co-developing products and services for the larger global economy.

In this way, the PMO is providing a degree of accountability through their strong public announcements, not only indicating that the deal is done, but that it must deliver an economic outcome or benefit, thus implicitly holding ministries accountable for the delivery and outcomes.

From a governance perspective, this means the PMO would need to track: is the tariff reduction being passed on to MSMEs? Are MSMEs taking advantage of the FTA? Is the movement of professionals occurring? Are sensitive sectors being protected as agreed? If the government does not monitor and evaluate implementation, then what could just be symbolic will not have a transformative or meaningful impact.

BRIDGING EXTERNAL DIPLOMACY WITH DOMESTIC POLICY REFORM

One of the less valued, but equally important roles of the PMO is to connect external trade diplomacy with domestic reforms and align domestic policy. For example, the PMO text states, “The FTA seeks to promote good regulatory practices and enhance transparency that are in sync with India’s own focus on domestic reforms to enhance the ease of doing business.” 

This is indicative that the PMO is not thinking of an FTA simply as an external treaty but as something that would be used to further important internal reform that would make India more competitive, and make their exporters and industry more global-ready. The PMO is thus linking diplomatic outcomes with domestic modernisation.

CONCLUSION

The India-UK FTA is a significant milestone: 99% of Indian exports to the UK are expected to obtain zero-duty access, labour-intensive sectors will benefit, and India will get goods, services and investment from the UK in return. What this underlines is that the PMO has a central role, not an ancillary one, in such deals.

While agreements such as the India-UK Free Trade Agreement can dominate media attention, what is often overlooked is the institutional architecture that enables treaty-making. The PMO of India is that of institutional architecture.

The PMO’s roles in agenda-setting, inter-agency coordination, defining negotiating boundaries, running diplomacy, implementation, and connecting treaty outcomes to a program of internal reform are significant. When you recognise the PMO’s centrality, you come to appreciate that trade diplomacy is not just about a negotiator in a conference room, but a sustained political leadership, strategic direction, and governance at the highest level.

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BY HIMANSHU GOLHANI

COVERING PRIME MINISTER

TEAM GEOSTRATA

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