A couple weeks ago, the United States ambassador to Bangladesh paid a visit to the central office of National Citizen's Party (NCP), ostensibly to drum up support for the Reciprocal Trade Agreement signed in the final days of the interim government. The ambassador and his team spoke highly of the deal and emphasised the economic opportunities this would create for both sides. Such advocacy is to be expected from diplomats tasked with advancing their country's commercial interests. Conveniently absent from the discussion, however, was any mention of the lopsided terms of the agreement or the dubious circumstances that brought it into existence.
Indeed, there was nothing ordinary about the circumstances that produced this arrangement. In April last year, the US administration abruptly announced sweeping worldwide tariff on exports from nearly 185 countries. Among them, Bangladesh, whose economy relies heavily on garment exports to the American market, was threatened with a 37 per cent tariff. Driven by the fear of losing its competitive edge, the country entered negotiations with the US, which brought the rate down to 20 per cent. The eventual signing of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) on February 9 this year brought only one additional percentage point of relief, reducing the tariff to 19 per cent. It is difficult to regard such a modest concession as sufficient justification for an agreement of this scope. Of greater concern, however, was the timing. The deal was struck just three days before the parliamentary elections when the interim government was already on its way out. There was no compelling reason to rush through an agreement of such consequence during a transition. The fact that it was done nonetheless ought to give anyone interested in the agreement reason to pause.
Fortunately, the agreement has not yet entered into force. Both sides must complete their domestic legal procedures before the 60-day implementation countdown begins. This window gives Bangladesh a crucial opportunity to reconsider its position, especially since the pressure that originally drove it to the negotiating table is gone. This is due to the fact that the US Supreme Court has invalidated the reciprocal tariff scheme on February 20, 2026, removing the primary economic leverage behind the deal. Yet, despite this monumental development, the agreement remains on the table as though nothing has changed. Public advocacy for the ART continues, and both sides appear to be proceeding on the assumption that it will eventually enter into force. The question is, with the initial rationale gone, why proceed with the deal to solve a problem that the court has already solved?
Even a cursory reading of the agreement makes clear why it has already generated so much opposition. Its one-sidedness runs through the text. The word shall, denoting mandatory obligation, appears 179 times across the document, 131 of them directed at Bangladesh and only six at the United States. Whatever label is attached to it, it is not a reciprocal agreement in any sense. It reads instead as a unilateral imposition of obligations, with one party issuing instructions and the other expected to simply comply with. Nor is this one-sidedness confined to trade. The agreement extends into defence and strategic matters that have little or nothing to do with tariffs.
Among the most outrageous provisions is the clause restricting Bangladesh from purchasing nuclear reactors, fuel rods or enriched uranium from any country deemed to jeopardise essential American interests. Under present circumstances, that restriction can scarcely be understood as anything other than a reference to Russia. Bangladesh has spent more than a decade and invested $12.65 billion in constructing the Rooppur nuclear power plant with Russian assistance, and the facility is expected to become operational by the end of this year. If the country is prevented from importing Russian fuel rods or uranium, the plant cannot run, effectively holding energy security hostage to American foreign policy. No nation that has invested such vast resources and time into a critical infrastructure project should have to answer to a trading partner for its energy security arrangements. This also reveals how far the agreement goes in dictating Bangladesh's foreign relations rather than facilitating commerce. Ture, compromise is an inevitable part of any trade negotiation, but it should never come at the expense of a nation's sovereign right to make its own economic and strategic decisions.
Trade is not the only front on which pressure is being applied. There are reports of two additional defence agreements that Washington has placed on the table. President Trump himself referred to them in his congratulatory message to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, confirming that they occupy an important place in American strategic thinking. Although their precise contents remain undisclosed, speculation suggests that they could involve American military access to Bangladeshi facilities or infrastructure.
What is no speculation though is the geopolitical significance of Bangladesh's location, which has bestowed both opportunity and vulnerability in equal measure. Major powers inevitably compete for influence in such places. For half a century, Bangladesh has balanced those competing pressures through a foreign policy founded on friendship towards all and malice towards none. That principle has often been dismissed as rhetorical idealism, but it has served the country remarkably well. Abandoning that carefully maintained balance in favour of defence deals would create risks far greater than any short-term diplomatic gain.
The international record of the US over the past quarter century provides every reason for Bangladesh to proceed with caution. Time and again it has resorted to military force with scant regard for the constraints of international law, and the ongoing conflict with Iran, a country far weaker militarily than the US, is only the latest instance. Nations across the Middle East that host American bases, whether by treaty or by practical arrangement, have repeatedly been dragged into confrontations they neither sought nor could control. Bangladesh has no national interest in exposing itself to that kind of vulnerability. Nor should it bind itself to a trade agreement, or to any defence arrangement offered alongside it, when so little stands to be gained from either. Commercial concessions can always be renegotiated. Sovereignty, once compromised, is far harder to recover.
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