Will Make ‘Tremendous’ Trade Deal With India, Says U.S. President Trump

Days ahead of his India visit, U.S. President Donald Trump said the two countries could make a "tremendous" trade deal.

"We're going to India, and we may make a tremendous deal there," Trump said in an event in Las Vegas.

Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, is scheduled to travel to Ahmedabad, Agra and New Delhi on Feb. 24 and 25.

Ahead of the visit, there have been talks about India and the U.S. agreeing on a trade package as a precursor to a major trade deal. Trump indicated that the talks on this might slowdown if he did not get a good deal.

Bilateral India-U.S. trade in goods and services is about three percent of the U.S.' world trade.

In a recent report, the Congressional Research Service said the trading relationship is more consequential for India -- in 2018 the United States was its second-largest goods export market (16 percent share) after the European Union (17.8 percent), and third largest goods import supplier (6.3 percent) after China (14.6 percent) and the EU 28 (10.2 percent).

"The United States for two years now has set out in stone pretty clearly the things that they wanted to see to try to get an agreement, and it's basically then on India's doorstep on whether they want to take those steps," Richard Rossow, Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank told reporters during a conference call.

"The list of U.S. asks has been pretty static all throughout. Not to say that any of these things are easy for India to do, but the United States to my knowledge didn't change the goalposts just because we now consider India to be a middle-income country,” he said in response to a question.