US, India on verge of trade deal, "tremendous progress" in talks: Marco Rubio

Highlighting India's growing economic importance, Rubio described India as a "massive economy" and one of America's key trade partners.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said the United States and India are "on the verge" of reaching a trade agreement, adding that both sides have made "tremendous progress" in talks aimed at rebalancing trade ties between the two countries. Addressing a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi, Rubio dismissed suggestions that the India-US relationship had lost momentum and said trade discussions were part of a broader global effort by the US administration to address trade imbalances.

"The US-India relationship has not lost any momentum," Rubio said. He said the trade push by the Donald Trump administration was not specifically targeted at India but part of a wider review of America's trade arrangements globally.

"The President did not say 'Let's figure out a way to create friction with India over trade.' The President came in and said, 'We have a trade situation involving the US economy that doesn't work moving forward. There's a huge imbalance that's built up, and it needs to be addressed'," Rubio said. He added, "There is virtually no country in the world that I could travel to that isn't going to raise the issue of trade because we did this from a global perspective."

Highlighting India's growing economic importance, Rubio described India as a "massive economy" and one of America's key trade partners. "The difference is that India is a massive economy. This is a big economy where you're the leading trade partner. We do a lot of trade with India," he said.

Rubio said the US will arrive at trade arrangements around the world that are good not only his country but also for trade partners. The US, he said, is hopeful of concluding a trade pact with India that would benefit both countries and remain sustainable in the long run.

"And one of those we hope will be India. In fact, we are on the verge of making that happen. We are hopeful that our trade representative can visit here very soon," he said. "We had an Indian delegation in the United States, I believe last week or the week before, we've made tremendous progress and I think we're going to wind up with a trade agreement between the United States and India that's going to be enduring and is going to be beneficial to both sides and sustainable in a way that addresses this national interest that we have," he added.

The United States and India announced in February this year that they have reached a framework for an Interim Agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade. The framework reaffirmed the countries' commitment to the broader US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, launched by President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025, which, the two countries said, will include additional market access commitments and support more resilient supply chains.

The Interim Agreement between the United States and India will represent a historic milestone in our countries' partnership, demonstrating a common commitment to reciprocal and balanced trade based on mutual interests and concrete outcomes, a joint statement said. Beyond trade, Rubio said India and the United States continued to cooperate across multiple strategic sectors.

"As an example, when we came out with the Pax Silica proposal from the State Department, one of the first countries that joined was India," he added. (ANI)