Trump says India and US are 'pretty close' to trade deal
Donald Trump told reporters the US and India are 'pretty close' to a trade deal, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Adani and Tata chairmen during his Mumbai-Jamnagar visit. Both sides finalised the BTA framework in February.
US President Donald Trump said India and the United States were 'pretty close' to a trade deal, telling reporters at the Oval Office, 'They want to make a deal. We are going to make a deal.' He added that it would be 'a much different kind of deal than we have done,' though he did not elaborate on specifics, and India and the US had finalised the framework for the first phase of the Bilateral Trade Agreement in February.
Trump's remarks coincided with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's two-day visit to Mumbai and Jamnagar, during which Rubio met Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani and Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran in Mumbai before heading to Gujarat. Rubio has described a deal as about as close to signing as it can be, and the visit followed Trump's waiver of potential tariffs linked to India's purchases of Russian crude.
Commerce and strategic ties remain intertwined: the trip's agenda spans energy security, defence and critical technologies, even as the lack of concrete deal details leaves exporters on both sides awaiting clarity on scope and timeline.
