Will India sign bilateral trade pact with US before July 9 tariff deadline? 'Major deal soon', says Trump

United States  President Donald Trump on Friday said he would be signing a major trade deal with India soon. The US president's comments come after the US signed a major trade deal with China. 

 

 

Trump, addressing the Big Beautiful Bill event in Washington said, "... we're having some great deals." Trump said the US's relationship with every country has been "very good". "We just signed (trade deal) with China. We're not going to make deals with everybody... But we're having some great deals. We have one coming up, maybe with India, a very big one," the US president said.

 

"We're going to open up India. In the China deal, we're starting to open up China. Things that never really could have happened..." Trump added. The US president's comments come amid reports of the India-US bilateral trade agreement hitting a roadblock over import duties of certain goods. 

According to reports, the India-US bilateral trade agreement may not finalise ahead of Trump's July 9 deadline for imposing a reciprocal tariff of 26 per cent on goods imported from India. 

 

The Economic Times reported the discussions haven't progressed much following disagreements on import duties for auto components, steel and farm goods. In February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump agreed to conclude the first phase of a bilateral trade agreement by autumn 2025 and to expand trade to $500 billion by 2030, from about $191 billion in 2024, the publication reported. Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had led a delegation to the US recently to discuss the bilateral trade pact. 

 

Briefing presspersons on Thursday, the ministry of external affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal referred to India-US ties as  the "most consequential partnership of the 21st century."

 

India