India rejects US Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s claim that India-US trade deal stalled because Modi did not call Trump

New Delhi: India on Friday described as inaccurate US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's remarks that the trade deal between the two countries could not fructify, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not call up President Donald Trump. External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India and the US held a series of negotiations on the deal, and that New Delhi is committed to firming it up. "We have seen the remarks. India and the US were committed to negotiating a bilateral trade agreement as far back as February 13 last year," he said.

Since then, the two sides have held multiple rounds of negotiation to arrive at a balanced and mutually beneficial trade agreement, he said. "On several occasions, we have been close to a deal. The characterisation of these discussions in the reported remarks is not accurate," Jaiswal said at his weekly media briefing. He was responding to questions on Lutnick's remarks. "We remain interested in a mutually beneficial trade deal between two complementary economies and look forward to concluding it," Jaiswal said. "Incidentally, Prime Minister (Modi) and President Trump have also spoken on the phone on eight occasions during 2025, covering different aspects of our wide-ranging partnership," he added.

Earlier, 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.”