The United States’ trade relationship with India has become a central topic in recent diplomatic exchanges, with US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick making a bold prediction about the future of a potential trade deal. Speaking to Bloomberg, Lutnick stated that he expects India to be back at the negotiating table with the US in a “month or two.”
This comment comes on the heels of US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks that India and Russia have been “lost to the ‘deepest, darkest’ China.”
Lutnick suggested that while Washington is “always willing to talk,” India’s increased purchases of Russian oil were “wrong.” He then made a pointed prediction: “So, I think yes, in a month or two months, I think India is going to be at the table, and they’re going to say they’re sorry, and they’re going to try to make a deal with Donald Trump.” He added that it would be up to Trump to decide how to handle Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Lutnick’s criticism of India’s oil purchases was sharp. He highlighted that before the conflict in Ukraine, India sourced less than two percent of its oil from Russia, whereas “now they’re buying 40% of their oil from Russia.”
He also urged India to support the US dollar and distance itself from the BRICS group, an intergovernmental organization of emerging economies. Lutnick emphasized the global economic power of the US, stating, “We are the consumer of the world. People have to remember, it’s our $30 trillion economy that is the consumer of the world. So eventually they all have to come back to the customer, because we all know eventually the customer is always right.”
The comments reflect a period of strained relations between India and the US, which had hit a decades-long low after the Trump administration imposed tariffs as high as 50% on Indian imports. Trump’s former trade advisor, Peter Navarro, had previously described the Ukraine war as “Modi’s war,” alleging that Indian business elites were the primary beneficiaries of discounted Russian crude oil.
US Commerce Secretary Expects India To Seek Trade Deal With Trump In “A Month Or Two”
