India willing to cut 100% tariffs; trade deal with New Delhi soon: Trump

New York: India is willing to cut 100 per cent tariffs on American goods, US President Donald Trump claimed once again while saying that a trade deal between New Delhi and Washington is coming soon.

In an interview to Fox News, Trump, however, said that he is not in a "rush" for the proposed trade deal.

Against the backdrop of the US president's repeated claim of India offering to drop all tariffs on American goods, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in New Delhi on Thursday that "any trade deal has to be mutually beneficial".

Trump again described India as "one of the highest tariff nations in the world."

"They make it almost impossible to do business. Do you know that they're willing to cut 100 per cent of their tariffs for the United States?" Trump said.

When asked if the deal with India is coming soon, Trump said, "that'll come soon. I'm in no rush. Look, everybody wants to make a deal with us." Then he went on to add: "South Korea wants to make a deal but I'm not going to make deals with everybody. I'm just going to set the limit. I'll make another some deals. Because I can't, you can't meet with that many people. I've got 150 countries that want to make deals." India and the US are holding talks to firm up a trade deal.

On Thursday, Jaishankar said trade talks have been going on between India and the US.

"These are complicated negotiations. Nothing is decided till everything is. Any trade deal has to be mutually beneficial; it has to work for both countries," he said.

"That would be our expectation from the trade deal." Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is currently in Washington to assess the progress of negotiations for the proposed trade agreement.

He is expected to hold talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer.

To boost bilateral trade, India is seeking duty concessions for labour-intensive sectors like textiles, gems and jewellery, leather goods, garments, plastics, chemicals, shrimp, oil seeds, chemicals, grapes, and bananas in the proposed pact with America.

On the other hand, the US wants duty concessions in sectors like certain industrial goods, automobiles (electric vehicles in particular), wines, petrochemical products, dairy, agriculture items such as apples, and tree nuts.