“The US can have a trade deal with India but I’m really saving the big deal for later,” said Trump to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Tuesday
New Delhi: US President Donald Trump has said he is “saving the big deal” with India for the future and he “does not know” if it will be done before the presidential election in November. He clearly indicates that a major bilateral trade deal during his visit to Delhi next week might not be on the cards.
“The US can have a trade deal with India but I’m really saving the big deal for later,” said Trump to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Tuesday. Donald Trump is scheduled to visit India on February 24 and 25.
According to media reports, The US and India could sign a “trade package” during the visit. When questioned whether he expects a trade deal with India before the visit. “US is doing a very big trade deal with India. We’ll have it. I don’t know whether it’ll be done before the election, but the US has a very big deal with India, said, Trump.”
As per the sources, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the point-person for trade negotiations with India, is likely to not accompany Donald Trump to India. However, officials have not ruled it out altogether.
Over the disappointment on US-India trade ties, Trump said, “The US is not treated very well by India.” But he appreciation Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he is looking forward to his visit to India. “I am almost like PM Modi a lot,”.
Trump said “Modi told to me we’ll have seven million people between the airport and the event and the stadium, I know, is kind of semi under construction, but it’s going to be the largest stadium in the world. So it’s going to be very exciting and I hope you all enjoy it,”.
While in a report the US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF) said the latest quarterly data depict the continuation of overall positive bilateral trade trends. The third-quarter data reflects some downslide in growth rates.
“Due to many reasons, including the unexpected economic slowdown in India’s economic growth, the impact of US-China trade war, GSP withdrawal from the US side and retaliatory tariffs on specific US goods from the Indian side,” USISPF said.
As the report, the data available for the first three quarters of 2019 pulled the overall growth rate in cumulative bilateral trade down to 4.5 percent from 8.4 percent recorded for the first two quarters. In contrast, Goods and services trade performance in the third quarter was dismal at -2.3 percent, with the impressive 9.6 percent growth observed for the first two quarters of the year; while trade in services was up two percent goods trade dropped five percent.
Among the top trading partners for India, the US is still behind in terms of trade in goods and services, followed by China. While the bilateral trade between the US and India is around 62 percent in goods and 38 percent in services, the bilateral trade between India and China is dominated by goods.
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