New York, Jan 9: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the trade deal with India did not happen because Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not call US President Donald Trump.
Lutnick’s remarks came a few days after Trump said that Modi knew he was unhappy with India’s purchases of Russian oil and that Washington could raise tariffs on New Delhi “very quickly”.
The threat by the US president came at a time when the two countries were negotiating a bilateral trade agreement.
So far, six rounds of negotiations have been held for that. The pact includes a framework deal to resolve the 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods entering America.
Lutnick, in a podcast on Thursday, said he asked for Modi to call the president to close the deal. However, he said India was “uncomfortable” doing it, “so Modi didn’t call”.
The commerce secretary said the US did trade deals with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam but he assumed the trade deal with India was going to be done before them.
“… we did Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, we announced a whole bunch of deals. So we did these whole bunch of deals…. because we negotiated them and assumed India was going to be done before them, I have negotiated them at a higher rate. So now the problem is the deals came out at a higher rate. And then India calls back and says, ‘Oh, okay, we are ready’. I said, ready for what.” (PTI)
