US President Donald Trump has echoed Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicating that the bilateral trade agreement with India was close. Speaking at a news briefing on Tuesday (local time), Trump was asked if the trade deal with India was close. The US President replied, " They want to make a deal. We're going to make a deal. Pretty close, yeah. Going to be a much different kind of a deal than we've made in the past."

directly engaged in the negotiations
Earlier, Rubio revealed that the India-US trade deal is “incredibly close”, indicating that finalisation is anticipated shortly. Speaking to Network18, Rubio noted that while he is not directly engaged in the negotiations, which are handled through the trade representative, he has closely monitored the discussions and expects the agreement to materialise in a matter of weeks, not months.

safeguard bilateral ties
“I’m not personally negotiating it; it’s done through our trade representative, but I know, and I’ve been very involved in watching it happen, that it is something we anticipate seeing in a matter of weeks, not months,” said Rubio. Elaborating on the meticulous final stages, he highlighted the necessity of absolute precision prior to public announcements to safeguard bilateral ties of such high importance.

technical details that need to be worked out
“I felt that way before, and with these deals, it’s always important that it would be totally agreed to, every detail of it, before it’s announced because you can’t afford for a relationship of this magnitude to be threatened by announcing a deal and it turning out the deal wasn’t finalised. But it’s incredibly close. I think we are down to some technical details that need to be worked out.

overarching outcome remains highly
Technical details matter because there has to be an agreement; both sides have to agree that the language means the same thing. So, it’s down to that level,” he said. Addressing queries concerning comparative rates for India alongside other nations, Rubio affirmed that the overarching outcome remains highly advantageous. “The preponderance of it is good for you. And that’s what we aim to achieve here, and I can’t wait till we do it because we have so many things we can work together on,” Rubio stated.