Modi Not Calling Trump Stalled Talks Says Lutnick; No, Says India
NEW DELHI- India on January 9 rejected US Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s comments that the India-US trade negotiations have stalled because Prime Minister Narendra Modi “didn’t call” President Donald Trump.
“The characterization of these discussions in the reported remarks is not accurate,” MEA spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said. “India remains interested in a mutually beneficial trade deal between two complementary economies and looks forward to concluding it,” he added.
Lutnick said on January 8 that the trade deal failed after Trump did not receive a call from Modi on the issue, adding that Washington moved ahead with other agreements instead.
Jaiswal said: “We have seen the remarks. India and the United States were committed to negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the US as far back as 13th of February last year. Since then, the two sides have held multiple rounds of negotiations to reach a balanced, mutually beneficial trade agreement.”
He further stated that on several occasions, the two countries have been close to a deal.
“Incidentally, the Prime Minister and President Trump have also spoken on the phone on eight occasions in 2025, covering various aspects of our wide-ranging partnership,” Jaiswal added.
The US Commerce Secretary claimed he asked Modi to call the President to close the deal. However, he said India was “uncomfortable doing it, so Mr Modi didn’t call.”
Lutnick further stated that the US clinched trade deals with Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, but had expected the trade deal with India to be done before them.
“We did Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and we announced a whole bunch of deals. So, we did this whole bunch of deals because we negotiated them and assumed India was going to be done before them. I have negotiated them at a higher rate. So now the problem is that the deals came out at a higher rate. And then India calls back and says, ‘Oh, okay, we are ready’. I said, ‘Ready for what?'” he added. (IANS)
Sam
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The problem as I see it is that the USA is asking India to buy particular products that India does not want. The other problem is that USA and India both buys and sells with US dollars. Here is what I think would be free.
Open stores to sell what the other wants to buy. And the buyer pays with its currency. India pays with Rupees and USA pays with dollars. After that the country uses those wherever they want to.
To dictate that India needs to eat US genetically modified junk is wrong. What if India said, good we will buy your GMO crops and you buy an equivalent amount of chili powder and sugar.
January 9, 2026