US, Indian foreign ministers discuss Middle East, energy cooperation
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US President Donald Trump said trade negotiations with India are nearly complete, months after a preliminary agreement reached in February failed to produce a final deal.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said India wants to reach a trade agreement and that the United States will do so as well. "It's almost done," he said, while declining to elaborate, adding that it "could be a very different kind of deal."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who visited India on Tuesday, echoed that assessment in an interview with the Indian Express, saying he believes "it's weeks, not months" before a deal is signed and that "99% of the work is already done." He told CNN-News18 that "a few technical details" remain to be worked out.
The United States and India reached a preliminary agreement in February to conclude a first-phase trade deal, with the two sides agreeing to finalize details and sign a formal agreement separately. Under that preliminary accord, the United States agreed to lower its country-specific reciprocal tariff on India from 25 percent to 18 percent and to withdraw a punitive 25 percent tariff tied to India's imports of Russian crude oil.
A final agreement has since been delayed — first by a US Supreme Court ruling in February that found the reciprocal tariffs unlawful, then by a Section 301 trade investigation the Trump administration launched in March, and later by a standoff over tariff rates.
Also on Tuesday, Rubio met with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Mumbai, the financial capital of Maharashtra state in western India, to discuss energy cooperation and regional and global issues including the situation in the Middle East.
The Department of State said the two ministers "discussed regional and global issues, including the situation in the Middle East," and that Rubio "reiterated that expanding energy trade with the United States can play a transformative role in meeting India's enormous consumer demand while also diversifying its supply chains."
Rubio was also scheduled to visit a large oil refinery operated by Reliance Industries, India's largest refiner, in Jamnagar, Gujarat.
Earlier, he told reporters he planned to discuss with Reliance expanding the refining of Venezuelan crude oil.
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