US President Donald Trump has said that India has agreed to “drop” all import tariffs on American goods as Washington was not going to put up with India’s high tariffs. New Delhi did not come up with any official reaction to the comment while sources said on condition of anonymity that negotiations were nowhere near the finish line. Trump’s comments were made at a White House media interaction on Tuesday, the same day India and the UK announced the conclusion of their ambitious bilateral free trade agreement (FTA). “India, as an example, has one of the highest tariffs in the world. We’re not going to put up with that. And they’ve agreed already to drop it. They will drop it to nothing... They would have never done that for anybody else but me,” he said Trade officials from both India and the US are engaged to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) that, New Delhi hopes, will help it avoid Trump’s reciprocal tariffs but no final decisions have been taken, a source tracking the matter said. On April 2, US President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on most countries that have trade surpluses with the US, including India which got slapped with 26 per cent levies. But he paused them for 90 days (except a baseline tariff of 10 per cent that continues to be levied) to give time for trade deals. “India and the US have officially agreed to the terms of reference for the BTA when the US Vice President was in Delhi last month but there is some way to go before a deal is made,” the source told businessline. While the first draft of the proposed BTA, which Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to work out when they met in February this year, is expected to be ready by fall of 2025, the two sides are also looking at an interim deal within the tariff-pause period. Non-tariff barriers The US is looking at steep tariff cuts or tariff elimination for products such as automobiles, motorbikes, whisky and agriculture to reduce its trade deficit with India. It also wants India to address non-tariff barriers which may cover a number of areas such as import barriers, licenses, standards and intellectual property (IP). On Sunday, Trump told reporters that there “could very well be” trade deals announced this week. “We’re negotiating with many countries but at the end of this I’ll set my own deals because I set the deal, they don’t set the deal, I set the deal,” he said. “This is not like a big deal that’s gonna be signed — in some cases we’ll sign them, but we don’t have to sign them. I’ll be setting the deal, I’ll be setting the tariff,” he added. The Trump administration had earlier indicated that India, Japan and South Korea were the front-runners for a trade deal with the US. More Like This Published on May 7, 2025