- WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said that trade talks with India were
“coming along great” and expressed confidence in signing a deal.
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- Unlike his aides, however, the president did not put an
immediacy to the talks.
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- “India's coming along great,” he told reporters at an
airport, heading to a rally in Michigan state to mark his achievements in the
first 100 days of his second term. “I think we'll have a deal with India...
they want to make a deal.”
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- Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary who has been
leading the negotiations with trading partner countries in Asia, has flagged
the likelihood of a deal with India being the first to be signed in the
aftermath of the global trade turmoil triggered by President Trump’s multiple
rounds of escalation of tariff, including a reciprocal tariff on nearly all of
America’s trading partner countries.
Read: President Donald Trump marks first 100 days in office with rally in Michigan, state rocked by his tariffs
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- Imports from India were pegged at 26 per cent in
President Trump’s reciprocal levies that were announced early this month aimed
at levelling import duties and also bridging the trade imbalance that favours
India. It is down to 10 per cent for 90 days and applies to all trading partner
nations with the exception of China, whose exports to the US will be tariffed
at 145 per cent.
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- India has been off the block fast to sew up a trade deal
and the Trump administration has been touting it as the model outcome of
President Trump’s tariff assault on global trade.
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- “I would guess that India would be one of the first trade
deals we would sign,” Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC.
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- Bessent has indicated the first trade deal is expected
this week or the next.
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- India wants a deal and made it clear by not retaliating
to President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, unlike China, and moved swiftly to
seek a deal instead.
