President Donald Trump said India offered to cut tariffs, while New Delhi signaled it’s continuing to negotiate a trade agreement with the US, indicating both sides are keeping the door open to resolving tensions.
Trump said in a social media post on Monday that India offered to reduce its tariffs on US goods to zero, without saying when the concession was made. He added that “it’s getting late” and India should have made the offer “years ago.”
India’s government hasn’t officially responded to Trump’s remarks, but Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said at an event on Tuesday that both sides continue to engage to reach a trade agreement.
“We are in dialog with the US for a bilateral trade agreement,” Goyal said in New Delhi.
There are no formal talks taking place between the trade negotiators at the moment after a US team canceled its trip to India in August. Bloomberg News reported last week that the two nations are keeping informal communication channels open.
Trump’s latest post may signal that the US remains open to trade talks, according to Abhijit Das, a former Indian trade official and author on trade matters. “This is his attempt to walk back on his earlier hardened stance on India,” he said.
Trump slapped India with 50% tariffs on exports to the US to penalize it for its trade barriers and its purchases of Russian oil. India was among the first countries to open trade talks with the Trump administration, with the US president and Prime Minister Narendra Modi committing to a bilateral deal by the fall of this year.
The two sides failed to clinch a deal after five rounds of talks, with the US getting increasingly frustrated with New Delhi’s unwillingness to budge on key issues, such as opening up its dairy and agriculture markets. Trump later began threatening India with additional tariffs because of its purchases of Russian oil, which he says is helping to fund Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
India had made several concessions early on in the negotiations, including offering to reduce tariffs on industrial goods, such as auto components and pharmaceuticals, to zero if the US reciprocated.
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