MEA says India still keen on trade deal with US, rejects Commerce Secy Lutnick’s comments

New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday rejected US Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s comments that the India-US trade negotiations have stalled because Prime Minister Narendra Modi “didn’t call” President Donald Trump.

“The characterisation of these discussions in the reported remarks is not accurate,” MEA spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said.

“India remains interested in a mutually beneficial trade deal between two complementary economies and looks forward to concluding it,” he added.

Lutnick said on Thursday that the trade deal failed after Trump did not receive a call from PM Modi on the issue, adding that Washington moved ahead with other agreements instead.

Jaiswal said: “We have seen the remarks. India and the United States were committed to negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the US as far back as 13th of February last year. Since then, the two sides have held multiple rounds of negotiations to reach a balanced, mutually beneficial trade agreement.”

He further stated that on several occasions, the two countries have been close to a deal.

“Incidentally, the Prime Minister and President Trump have also spoken on the phone on eight occasions in 2025, covering various aspects of our wide-ranging partnership,” Jaiswal added.

The US Commerce Secretary claimed he asked Prime Minister Modi to call the President to close the deal. However, he said India was “uncomfortable doing it, so Mr Modi didn’t call”.

Lutnick further stated that the U.S. clinched trade deals with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, but had expected the trade deal with India to be done before them.

“We did Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and we announced a whole bunch of deals. So we did this 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 that 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?”

IANS