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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump have instructed officials to take forward discussions on a bilateral trade agreement as quickly as possible and the US Trade Representative will visit India next week for further talks in this connection, foreign secretary Vikram Misri said on Thursday.
The trade deal was one of the important issues that figured in the meeting between Modi and Trump on the margins of the G7 Summit in Evian on Wednesday as there is a need to ensure “some kind of certainty” in trade-related matters with the US, Misri told a media briefing in Paris.
The two leaders hadn’t met in the past 16 months simply because Modi had not travelled to the US after February 2025 — when he last met Trump in Washington — and the US President had not visited India, and Wednesday’s meeting was held in a “good atmosphere”, Misri said.
“All important issues on the minds of two leaders were discussed. One important issue between the two countries is the bilateral trade agreement and the two leaders instructed their officials to take this forward as quickly as possible,” Misri said. “US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is coming to India next week and he will meet the commerce minister and take the talks forward.”
The trade deal, he said, has “created a certain amount of uncertainty over the past year” and it is important to move toward “some kind of certainty on these issues”.
The meeting between Modi and Trump was seen as an effort to restore normalcy to the bilateral relationship that was hit by unprecedented strains last year after Trump hit Indian exports with 50% tariffs. The two sides announced an understanding on a framework for a trade deal in February, but negotiations have dragged on since then, with differences persisting on matters such as tariffs and market access.
Misri noted that there are “ups and downs and developments” in bilateral relations that the leaders of the two countries have to deal with. He responded to a question about issues such as Pakistan and cross-border terrorism not being included in the talks between Modi and Trump by saying the two leaders had a brief meeting that was not structured to discuss a wide range of matters.
“India’s concerns and views on all [these] issues are well known and also known to our American partners,” he said.
Misri said in the context of the peace deal between Iran and the US that India stands ready to work with all parties on the next steps to ensure a lasting peace in West Asia.
The leaders of Iran and the US have signed a memorandum of understanding that will result in the cessation of hostilities and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, though Israel has expressed its reservations about the arrangement.
“It is natural to have concerns about something that has been concluded but we don’t yet know as to how exactly things will unfold on the ground,” Misri said, noting that India expects the deal to lead to sustained peace and stability in West Asia.
“We have always expressed our readiness to contribute in any manner that we can. We have very strong relationships with all of the countries in the region,” he said. “We remain in close touch with all those partners and we will be ready to do whatever it is possible for us to do, insofar as addressing the next steps is concerned.”
India prefers the parties to the conflict to finalise a roadmap for the way forward, he said. “Now that we are at the beginning of such a path, if there are ways in which we can contribute through our engagement, whether it is with Iran or with Israel, we would be ready to do that.”
Rezaul H Laskar is the Foreign Affairs Editor at Hindustan Times. His interests include movies and music.
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