“It’s all set up, you have to have Modi call the president … they (Indians) were uncomfortable doing it. So Modi didn’t call.”
Modi didn’t call, so the India-US trade deal didn’t go through, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick revealed on a podcast.
“Then India comes back and says okay we’re ready, I said ready for what, it was like three weeks later, are you ready for the train that left the station … India was on the wrong side of the see-saw, they couldn’t get it done when they needed to and all these other countries kept doing deals.”
Lutnick acknowledged there may have been domestic issues underlying Modi not calling up Trump on the phone.
“There’s a lot of countries and they each have their own deep internal politics and to get something approved by their parliament of by their government, these are deeply complex things but we got them done. We got Europe done, then we did Korea, country after country.”
The India deal was always up there. In fact, Lutnick recalled after the deal with the UK was done, that included a phone call to Trump from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the president had referred to India a number of times. Now it appears what was negotiated at that time no longer holds.
“The US has stepped back from that trade deal that we had agreed to earlier. We are not thinking about it anymore,” Lutnick said. But he also said that the door remains open. “India will work it out,” he said.
Lutnick’s revelations confirm what is widely believed, that Trump’s ego got in the way of signing a deal where India had conceded more than it was willing to in the past.
Indian diplomats say that Lutnick’s remarks trivialised the complex and intense nature of trade negotiations that are always done institutionally and not through personal phone calls or by massaging some one’s ego. Clearly, for the man occupying the White House, spectacle and flattery are important.
What happens now? Trump has already announced 500% tariffs on countries buying Russian oil, that includes India and China. Although diplomats say the India-US relationship is broader than trade, it’s not clear how much and for how long it can be insulated from Trump’s public sparring and personalised attacks.
Thirty eight years in journalism, widely travelled, history buff with a preference for Old Monk Rum. Current interest/focus spans China, Technology and Trade. Recent reads: Steven Colls Directorate S and Alexander Frater's Chasing the Monsoon. Netflix/Prime video junkie. Loves animal videos on Facebook. Reluctant tweeter.
