Trump says ‘very big’ trade deal coming up with India

US President Donald Trump said America is going to have a “very big” trade deal with India, hinting at significant progress in the negotiation process of a long-awaited bilateral trade agreement between the two countries.
“We’re having some great deals. We have one coming up, maybe with India, a very big one, where we’re going to open up India,” Trump said during an event at the White House promoting passage of the GOP’s tax and spending cuts legislation on Thursday.
Trump’s remarks come as an Indian team headed by chief negotiator Rajesh Agarwal on Thursday arrived in Washington for the next round of trade talks with the US.
Trump also repeated his claims that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan by telling his administration officials to “cancel all deals” with the two countries, after which they agreed to stop the fighting. “We did some great work. India and Pakistan. That was going to be maybe nuclear. We did that. We did a lot of work. I don’t know if there’s ever been a president that’s done much more,” Trump said.
Trump said war between India and Pakistan could have turned nuclear, after he told the countries that Washington would not “trade” with Delhi and Islamabad.
“Serbia, Kosovo is going to go at it, going to be a big war. I said, ‘you go at it, there’s no trade with the United States.… That’s what happened with India and Pakistan. I was negotiating with both of them and I said to (Treasury Secretary) Scott (Bessent), I said to (Commerce Secretary) Howard (Lutnick), cancel all deals with India and Pakistan. They’re not trading with us because they’re in a war,” Trump said.
Trump said the two countries “called back. ‘What do we do?’ I said, ‘Look, you want to have trade with the United States. It’s great, but you want to go and start using nuclear weapons on each other. We’re not going to allow that.’ And they both agreed, both have great leaders. They both agreed not to do it. So so we did a lot,” Trump said.
India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.