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Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and National Citizen Party leaders in separate meetings with a visiting United States delegation discussed next national elections and reform issues on Wednesday in Dhaka city. 

BNP standing committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said that bilateral relations, including trade and commerce, were among the key topics discussed in the meeting with the US team led by deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Nicole Ann Chulick.

The BNP leader said that the discussions also covered democratic transition and forthcoming elections in Bangladesh, while convener of the newly floated NCP Nahid Islam said that they had conveyed to the visiting delegation that any elections without fundamental reforms would be deemed unacceptable.

‘They wanted to understand what the BNP’s policy would be if it came to power in the future,’ Khasru told reporters emerging from the meeting at the US chargé d’affaires Tracey Ann Jacobson’s residence at Gulshan in the city.

He said that the BNP highlighted its historical role in implementing major political and economic reforms in the country.

Jamaat had the first meeting among the three separate ones with the US delegation, emerging from which its amir Shafiqur Rahman said that they wanted the next elections to be held by next Ramadan in February.

He, however, said that Jamaat wanted to keep trust in chief adviser Muhammad Yunus’s commitment to hold the election in December or by June next year.

‘All the significant reforms that have taken place in Bangladesh were introduced during the BNP’s time in office. If we are given the responsibility to govern again, we intend to pursue even more extensive economic reforms,’ Amir Khasru said while talking to reporters after their meeting.

He said that if democratic order was not restored, several important decisions would continue to be postponed, causing economic losses. Potential investors adopted a wait-and-see approach regarding the outcome of the next election and the policies of the elected government, he explained.

Amir Khasru also said that during the meeting they discussed how the US tariff on Bangladeshi goods could be brought down to a more acceptable level.

After the meeting with the US delegation, NCP convener Nahid Islam said, ‘We have told the US diplomats that if there is an election without fundamental reforms, that election will not be acceptable. Whether the NCP will participate in such an election is still under consideration.’

Nahid, also former adviser to the interim government, alleged that the field-level administration was not performing. ‘NCP leaders and activists were being attacked in various areas, and the administration remained silent,’ he added.

He claimed that the administration appeared to be favouring the BNP in certain locations.

‘We are witnessing incidents of manipulation at the grassroots level to which the administration is turning a blind eye. We made it clear during the discussions that fair elections cannot take place under such conditions,’ Nahid said, adding that a neutral administration, police and bureaucracy were essential to establish a level playing field.

US deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Nicole Ann Chulick arrived at Dhaka on Tuesday on a four-day visit, while another US official, deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Andrew R Herrup, reached the city on Wednesday to lead another delegation.  

These are the first delegations from the administration of the newly elected US president, Donald Trump, to visit Bangladesh.

The delegations are likely to hold meetings with government officials and civil society members over Bangladesh’s democratic transition, reform initiatives of the interim government led by chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus, and bilateral trade, among other issues, according to officials concerned.

The previous Biden administration extended support for reforms and democratic transition in Bangladesh.

The delegation led by Andrew Herrup during its visit is focused on the Rohingya crisis and Myanmar situation as Bangladesh has been pressing for the return of more than 1.2 million Myanmar nationals of Rohingya community who fled to Bangladesh, facing brutal atrocities by the Myanmar military since 2017. 

The US deputy assistant secretaries are scheduled to depart Dhaka by April 18.

Bangladesh, which had appealed for a pause in the reciprocal tariffs slapped recently by the Trump administration, has already welcomed the US decision for a 90-day suspension of the reciprocal tariffs for most countries.

On April 9, US president Donald Trump declared a complete halt on all ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, taking immediate effect, with the exception of those imposed on China, Canada and Mexico.

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump stated that he had ‘authorised a 90-day pause, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately.’

Chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on April 7 sent a letter to Donald Trump, requesting a three-month postponement of the proposed reciprocal tariff measures on Bangladeshi exports to the US, single largest destination of Bangladesh’s readymade garment exports.

The move came after Trump announced steep 37 per cent tariff on April 2, triggering an alarm in Dhaka over its potential impact on export earnings and jobs in key sectors such as garments and textiles.