WASHINGTON: In a setback for PM Modi, US President Donald Trump cast doubton mega trade deal with India during historic visit.
US President Donald Trump said the United States and India were working ona major trade deal, but he was not sure if it would be completed before thepresidential election in November.
As Trump heads to India on his first official trip on Monday, negotiatorshave been trying for weeks to put together a limited accord giving the USgreater access to India’s dairy and poultry markets and lowering tariffs onother products. But no breakthrough has yet been announced and a plannedtrip by United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was canceled,underlining the difficulties the two sides face in narrowing differencesahead of Trump’s visit.
“We can have a trade deal with India, but I’m really saving the big dealfor later on,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, outside Air Force One atJoint Base Andrews in Maryland. “We’re doing a very big trade deal withIndia. We’ll have it. I don’t know if it’ll be done before the election,but we’ll have a very big deal with India,” he said, in a transcript ofremarks released by the White House.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has tried to build a personal rapportwith Trump, is pulling out all the stops for his visit, hosting him nextweek in Modi’s western home state of Gujarat for a reception in a cricketstadium.
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“We’re not treated very well by India, but I happen to like Prime MinisterModi a lot. And he told me we’ll have 7 million people between the airportand the event,” Trump said, referring to a roadshow ahead of a “HelloTrump” rally in Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat where he will begin thetrip. The United States is India’s second largest trade partner afterChina, with their goods and services trade hitting a record $142.6 billionin 2018. Last year, the United States had a $23.2 billion goods tradedeficit in 2019 with India, its 9th largest trading partner in goods.
Since Trump took office in 2017, long-standing trade differences betweenthe world’s biggest democracies have come to the fore, with Trump callingIndia the tariff king. The two have warred over everything from tariffs onfarm goods to Harley Davidson motorbikes and price caps on medical devicesand India’s new rules on local data storage.
India and the United States have built close political and security ties inrecent years, with New Delhi turning to Washington as a top arms supplier,edging out traditional partner Russia.
