New Delhi: A day after Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar said any trade deal with the US has to be mutually beneficial and that nothing has been finalised as yet, US president Donald Trump reiterated that India is willing to cut 100 per cent tariffs on American goods.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump insisted that a trade deal between New Delhi and Washington is coming soon. He, however, said that he is not in a “rush” for the proposed trade deal.
Trump, in the interview, again described India as “one of the highest tariff nations in the world.”
“They make it almost impossible to do business. Do you know that they’re willing to cut 100 percent of their tariffs for the United States?” Trump said.
When asked if the deal with India is coming soon, Trump said, “that’ll come soon. I’m in no rush. Look, everybody wants to make a deal with us.”
He then went on to add: “South Korea wants to make a deal but I’m not going to make deals with everybody. I’m just going to set the limit. You can’t meet with that many people. I’ve got 150 countries that want to make deals.”
India and the US are holding talks to firm up a trade deal. India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal is currently in Washington to assess the progress of negotiations for the proposed trade agreement. He is expected to hold talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer.
To boost bilateral trade, India is seeking duty concessions for labour-intensive sectors like textiles, gems and jewellery, leather goods, garments, plastics, chemicals, shrimp, oil seeds, chemicals, grapes, and bananas in the proposed pact with America.
On the other hand, the US wants duty concessions in sectors like certain industrial goods, automobiles (electric vehicles in particular), wines, petrochemical products, dairy, agriculture items such as apples, and tree nuts.
