US will sort out trade with India, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick says in interview. There’s been a visible thaw in US-India relations this week, but top American official Howard Lutnick took his usual transactional tone on Thursday when asked about the current high tariffs and a possible trade deal.
Lutnick, who is commerce secretary in Donald Trump’s administration, pointedly repeated the condition for India to stop buying Russian oil. It was during a CNBC interview that he was asked what trade issue he was most focused on. Lutnick mentioned India and said: “Well, we’re going to sort out India… once they stop buying Russian oil,”.
Despite an ice-break at the level of President Trump and PM Narendra Modi in between, Lutnick’s comments come as a follow-up to his remarks a week ago, that India — facing massive 50% tariffs on its exports to the US — will soon give in to US pressure. “In a month or two months, I think, India is going to be at the table, and they’re going to say they’re sorry, and they’re going to try to make a deal with Donald Trump,” Lutnick told Bloomberg in an interview last week.
Before his latest comments, India’s commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that negotiations for the proposed trade agreement are progressing “in a positive atmosphere”. While formal trade negotiations between India and the US broke down some weeks ago, Indian officials have said both sides are in touch to take forward a bilateral trade deal that the two countries had earlier said would be concluded in the fall.
The talks began in March-April, and the US at one point expressed frustration with the slow pace. India has set some red lines, around the farm sector in particular, while negotiating the deal, as it does not want American products to potentially overrun Indian agri-produce in the domestic market.
Modi-Trump exchange signals movement
This was after PM Modi said on Wednesday, in response to President Trump’s remarks, that there would be no difficulty in trade negotiations. That was the second positive exchange between the two leaders on social media in four days. The two leaders, who were last in touch on phone in June, also said they looked forward to speaking to each other.
Hours earlier, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that India and the US are “continuing negotiations to address the Trade Barriers between our two Nations”.
But that came along with other reports about more tariffs on India. Soon after Trump’s remarks on social media, the Financial Times reported that Trump had asked the European Union (EU) on Tuesday to impose tariffs of up to 100% on China and India as part of a joint effort to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine.
Senior members of Trump’s administration such as White House trade adviser Peter Navarro have continued to target India over Russian oil purchases amid the president’s recent outreach on social media. Trump has not targeted China over Russian oil purchases. He sharply hiked tariffs on Chinese goods but reduced them in May, and a tariff truce is in effect between the two sides.
