PM Modi-President Trump cut through noise to push trade deal

An Indian delegation led by special secretary Rajesh Agarwal will be in Washington next week.

Updated on: Sep 10, 2025, 12:01:31 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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Responding within hours to Donald Trump's post on Truth Social, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that he was confident that bilateral trade negotiations would “pave the way for unlocking the limitless potential of the India-US partnership”.

While the dates are still being finalised, telephone lines are burning between New Delhi and Washington to put the trade negotiation on track.

“India and the US are close friends and natural partners. I am confident that our trade negotiations will pave the way for unlocking the limitless potential of the India-US partnership. Our teams are working to conclude these discussions at the earliest. I am also looking forward to speaking with President Trump. We will work together to secure a brighter, more prosperous future for both our people,” PM Modi posted on X.

According to authoritative sources, an Indian team led by chief trade negotiator Rajesh Agarwal is headed to Washington next week to resume trade negotiations with his US interlocutors.

While the dates are still being finalised, telephone lines are burning between New Delhi and Washington to put the trade negotiation on track. Clearly, the two top leaders have taken it upon themselves to direct the bureaucrats to conclude the much-awaited trade deal. While US President Donald Trump has indicated that he will be speaking to PM Modi in the coming weeks, the engagement of the two leaders bodes well for the forthcoming Quad Summit.

After highest level engagement on social media on September 6, US President Donald Trump today stated: “ I am pleased to announce that India, and the US, are continuing negotiations to address the trade barriers between our two nations. I look forward to speaking with my very good friend, PM Modi, in the upcoming weeks. I feel certain that there will be no difficulty in coming to a successful conclusion for both of our great countries.”

There is a strong possibility that an Indian trade delegation will be leaving for US next week to address the trade barriers and ensure that both the countries have a win-win trade deal.

President Trump’s statement also indicates that other noises coming from Washington targeting India have little value as the American leader has taken upon himself to ensure that the negotiations are back on track and the two natural allies go back to their convergence. Similarly, PM Modi is also directing his officials to push the envelope on the trade deal.

While the trade deal is back on track, a delegation is coming from US on September 17-18 to address Indian concerns over pricing of six P8I anti-submarine warfare aircraft worth nearly three billion dollars. The two countries will also sign the deal to purchase 113 GE-404 aircraft engines this month to power the Tejas Mark I A fighter.

Even though some US officials have injected acrimony in bilateral ties by targeting India, the relationship on the whole is moving in a positive direction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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