With campaign‑style flourish, President Donald Trump has dangled the prospect of a “very big” trade accord with India, declaring that negotiations could be tied up before a 9 July tariff deadline, even as Indian negotiators arrived in the US capital for what may be the decisive round of talks.
Speaking at his “Big Beautiful Bill” rally, Trump boasted of recent pacts and teased the next one. “We are having some great deals. We have one coming up, maybe with India. Very big one. Where we’re going to open up India; in the China deal, we are starting to open up China,” he told supporters.
The President’s remarks came only days after Washington concluded an agreement with Beijing and less than three months after his administration slapped an extra 26 per cent reciprocal tariff on many Indian goods. Those duties were suspended for 90 days — a reprieve that expires on 9 July, giving negotiators little room for delay.
Deadlines and demands
New Delhi wants the surcharge scrapped altogether, arguing that the 10 per cent baseline tariff the US imposed simultaneously already bites hard enough. In return, Washington is pressing India to cut duties on an eclectic list of imports, ranging from electric cars and wine to Californian almonds and genetically modified seed.
Agriculture and dairy have proved the thorniest sectors for India. Officials note that not one of the country’s existing free‑trade agreements fully opens its dairy market, and concessions on cattle feed additives or milk‑fat standards would be politically fraught.
Also read: India-US FTA July 9 deadline may be pushed
Yet India, too, has a wish‑list. Duty relief for labour‑intensive exports, textiles, jewellery, leather, plastics, chemicals and seafood among them, is viewed in New Delhi as essential for balancing the ledger and protecting jobs.
“I think … 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,” Howard Lutnick, US Secretary of Commerce, at the US‑India Strategic Partnership Forum earlier this month.
Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal echoed that optimism on 10 June, telling reporters in New Delhi that the two leaders had agreed in principle during Trump’s February visit to strike a “nice, fair, equitable and balanced agreement to promote business”.
All eyes on Washington
Heading the visiting Indian delegation is Rajesh Agarwal, Special Secretary in the Department of Commerce and the country’s chief trade negotiator. According to the Press Trust of India, his team hopes to assemble an interim pact that could be unveiled by early autumn as a first tranche of a broader bilateral trade agreement aimed at more than doubling commerce to US $500 billion by 2030.
In spite of the tariff cloud, Indian exports to the US climbed to US $17.25 billion in April–May, up from US $14.17 billion a year earlier — an indication, officials suggest, that demand for Indian goods remains resilient.
Whether that momentum survives beyond 9 July now turns on the ability of both sides to sew up the remaining details — and on Trump’s appetite for crowning an election‑year rally with another headline trade deal.
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