New York/Washington: US President Donald Trump said negotiations with India over a bilateral trade deal are “coming along great” and he thinks Washington will “have a deal” with New Delhi.
Trump made the remarks on Tuesday while speaking to reporters before departing the White House for a rally in Michigan marking the first 100 days of his second administration.
“India is coming along great. I think we’ll have a deal with India,” said the president.
“The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) as you know was here three weeks ago, and they want to make a deal. We’ll see what happens,” he added.
Prime Minister Modi visited the White House in late February.
Earlier in the day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters in the White House that the US is “very close” to a trade deal with India.
He said that America’s Asian trading partners and allies “have been the most forthcoming in terms of doing the deals”.
At a press briefing, he spoke about Vice President JD Vance’s India visit last week. “I think that he and (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi made some very good progress. So I could see some announcements on India.”
Bessent added that he can also see the contours of a deal with South Korea coming together and substantial talks with Japan.
Responding to a question on the timeline for a trade deal, he said, “I think that we are very close on India and …India, in a funny way, is easier to negotiate with (than) many other countries because they have very high tariffs and lots of tariffs.
“So it’s much easier to confront the direct tariffs when as we go through these unfair trade deals that have been put in over decades, that the non-tariff trade barriers can be much more insidious and also harder to detect.
“So a country like India, which has posted and ready tariffs, it’s much easier to negotiate with them,” he said, adding that negotiations with New Delhi are “moving well”.
After Vance’s India visit, a statement from his office welcomed significant progress in the negotiations for a US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). It also formally announced the finalisation of the Terms of Reference for the negotiations, laying down a roadmap for further discussions about the shared economic priorities.
According to the statement, the BTA presents an opportunity to negotiate a new and modern trade agreement focused on promoting job creation and citizen well-being in both countries to enhance bilateral trade and supply-chain integration in a balanced and mutually beneficial manner.
Guided by their respective visions of ‘Amrit Kaal for India’ and ‘Golden Age for America,’ the trade agreement is expected to create new opportunities for growth for workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs in both countries, the statement said.
Deliberations between Indian and US officials on the proposed bilateral trade agreement began in Washington last week to with an aim to iron out issues and give an impetus to the negotiations.
India’s chief negotiator, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal, is leading the team for the first in-person talks between the two countries.
On April 15, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal stated that India would try to close the negotiations as quickly as possible with the US.
In a joint statement issued after their bilateral meeting in Washington in February this year, President Trump and PM Modi announced plans to negotiate the first tranche of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector BTA by the fall of 2025.
The leaders had committed to designate senior representatives to advance these negotiations and to ensure that the trade relationship fully reflects the aspirations of the COMPACT (Catalysing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce and Technology).
In the past, Trump has called India a “tariff king” and a “big abuser”.
During a joint press conference with Modi in the White House on February 13, Trump had said that India has “been very strong on tariffs”, and “I don’t blame them, necessarily, but it’s a different way of doing business. It’s very hard to sell into India because they have trade barriers, very strong tariffs.”
He announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs on several countries, including India and China, on April 2. However, on April 9, he announced a 90-day suspension of these tariffs until July 9 this year, except for those on China and Hong Kong, as about 75 countries approached America for trade deals.
However, the 10 per cent baseline tariff imposed on the countries on April 2 remains in effect, besides the 25 per cent duties on steel, aluminium, and auto components.
