US Says One of its First Trade Deals Would be With India

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that one of the first trade deals that the Trump administration will sign is likely to be with India.

Bessent told reporters many top trading partners of the United States had made “very good” proposals to avert US tariffs.

He added that the first such trade agreement might come this week or next, but gave no further details.

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“I would guess that India would be one of the first trade deals we would sign,” Bessent said in an interview earlier with CNBC.

He added that the US had also held very substantial negotiations with Japan and discussions with other Asian trading partners were going well.

“Vice President Vance was in India last week, talked about substantial progress,” Bessent said on CNBC.

In another interview on Fox News, Bessent said the US government was working on bespoke trade deals with 15 to 18 important trading partners, and that President Trump will be “intimately involved” in each.

Trump has upended the global trading system with a spate of tariffs since taking office. These include a blanket 10% tariff on most countries except Canada and Mexico, and new tariffs totalling 145% on goods from China.

Higher US tariffs on dozens of countries are due to take effect on July 8 unless deals are reached before a 90-day pause ends.

Talks with various countries have been ongoing, but no deals have been announced yet, underscoring the complexities of reaching agreements during the short 90-day period.

India is also working a bilateral trade deal with Britain, with their top trade officials starting two days of talks aimed at concluding more than three years of negotiations.

Negotiations ongoing with Korea, Japan

Speaking of other Asian trading partners, Bessent told CNBC “the negotiations with the Republic of Korea have gone very well.”

“And I think we’ve had some very substantial negotiations with our Japanese allies,” he added.

A government official in South Korea on Monday ruled out that Seoul would agree to a comprehensive trade agreement with Washington before a presidential election on June 3, and raised questions whether a deal could be reached before early July, as it involves major defence issues and other complex deals, such as shipbuilding, plus a huge $44-billion LNG project in Alaska.

Elections in Japan in July could also complicate those talks, although some analysts expect Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Trump to announce an agreement when they meet at the G7 summit in Canada in June.

Bessent, who held dozens of talks with visiting officials during last week’s meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, will likely face more questions on the trade talks when he joins a regular White House briefing on Tuesday to tout Trump’s record over the first 100 days of his second term.

• Reuters, with additional editing by Vishakha Saxena

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