Washington, 27 June

US President Donald Trump said America is going to have a “very big” trade deal with India, hinting at significant progress in the negotiation process of a long-awaited bilateral trade agreement between the two countries.

"We're having some great deals. We have one coming up, maybe with India, a very big one, where we're going to open up India,” Trump said during an event at the White House promoting passage of the GOP's tax and spending cuts legislation on Thursday.

“In the China deal, we're starting to open up China. Things that never really could have happened, and the relationship with every country has been very good,” Trump said.

The president, however, did not elaborate on the details of the deal signed with China.

He said that every country wanted to make a deal and have a part of it, and his administration officials were working overtime, making deals with countries.

“You remember a few months ago, the press was saying, ‘Do you really have anybody of any interest?’ Well, we just signed with China yesterday, right? We just signed with China. We have everybody. We're not going to make deals with everybody. Some we're just going to send them a letter and say thank you very much. You're going to pay 25 per cent, 35 per cent, 45 per cent. That's the easy way to do it, and my people don't want to do it that way. They want to do some of it, but they want to make more deals than I would do,” he said.

Trump's remarks come as an Indian team headed by chief negotiator Rajesh Agarwal on Thursday arrived in Washington for the next round of trade talks with the US.

Agrawal is the special secretary in the Department of Commerce.

India and the US are engaged in negotiations for an interim trade deal and are trying to finalise a pact before 9 July.

The high tariffs announced by the US on 2 April were suspended by the Trump administration till 9 July.

Agriculture and dairy sectors are difficult and challenging areas for India to give duty concessions to the US. India has not opened up dairy in any of its free trade pacts signed so far.

The US wants duty concessions on certain industrial goods, automobiles - especially electric vehicles, wines, petrochemical products, dairy, and agricultural items like apples, tree nuts, and genetically modified crops.

India is seeking duty concessions for labour-intensive sectors like textiles, gems and jewellery, leather goods, garments, plastics, chemicals, shrimp, oil seeds, grapes, and bananas in the proposed trade pact.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that one should expect a trade deal between India and the US in the "not too distant future", underlining that he is “very optimistic” about it.

“So the idea is when they put the right person and India put the right person on the other side of the table, and we've managed, I think, to be in a very, very good place. And you should expect a deal between the United States and India in the not-too-distant future because I think we found a place that really works for both countries,” Lutnick said in his keynote address at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) Leadership Summit.

The two countries are looking to conclude talks for the first tranche of the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA) by fall (September-October) this year. The pact is aimed at more than doubling bilateral trade to USD 500 billion by 2030 from the current USD 191 billion.