India on Friday dismissed the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s claim that the trade deal between the two countries could not be finalised because Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not call President Donald Trump.
“The characterisation of these discussions (on the trade deal) in the reported remarks is not accurate,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press conference.
“On several occasions we have been close to a deal. We remain interested in a mutually beneficial trade deal between two complementary economies and look forward to concluding it,” he added.
What did Lutnick say?
“I set the deal up. But you had to have Modi call President Trump. India was uncomfortable with it. So Modi didn’t call,” Lutnick said in a podcast. He also said that India called back after three weeks and by then it was too late. The time period Lutnick was referring to was around July-August, before the reciprocal and penal tariffs on India came into force. Since then both sides have held at least three rounds of talks on the deal.
Jaiswal said Modi and Trump had eight telephonic conversations in 2025 on different aspects of the wide ranging relationship.
Progress on the Bilateral Trade Agreement
India and US have been negotiating a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) since February last year and have held six formal rounds of negotiations apart from many intersessional meetings.
Apart from 50% additional tariffs, a bill has been introduced in US Congress on imposing 500% duties on countries buying crude oil from Russia. The bill is expected to come up for passing next week.
“We are aware of the Russia Sanctions Act and are focussing on developments around it,” Jaiswal said adding India would be guided by the global market dynamics and its requirement of “affordable energy for our 1.4 billion people through diverse sources to meet their energy security needs”.