President Donald Trump announced that the United States and India have reached a new trade agreement that will take effect soon.
In an announcement on social media, Trump said the US will reduce tariffs on Indian goods from 50% to 18%, while India will eliminate tariffs and non-tariff barriers on US products.
As part of the deal, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to buy more American products, including energy, technology, agriculture, and coal.
Modi also agreed to reduce purchases of Russian oil, and may buy more from the US and Venezuela.
Trump stressed that this move would not only strengthen US-India relations, but could also help reduce global tensions, including the war in Ukraine.
Trump also said that US-India relations would become more close in the future and called his and Modi’s cooperation “getting things done.”
Modi himself thanked the announcement, stressing that economic cooperation between the world’s two largest democracies would open up mutually beneficial opportunities for their respective peoples.
Even so, the official text of the deal has not been published, and some legal experts question whether Trump can make a binding trade deal without Congressional approval.
The deal comes just a week after India sealed a major trade deal with Europe, hailed by Modi as the 'mother of all deals', and appears to accelerate steps by the US and India to deepen their bilateral cooperation.
