US, India on verge of trade deal, "tremendous progress" in talks: Marco Rubio

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said the India-US trade deal was on the “verge of happening”.

Rubio was addressing a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi after the two held a bilateral meeting covering multiple issues of technology and energy, among others.

“We are on the verge of making that happen,” Rubio said when asked about the pending trade deal between the two countries.

In the absence of a structured deal, India was paying higher tariffs for goods entering the US and some of it was linked to buying Russian crude.

Rubio said they were hopeful that the US trade representative could “visit here very soon”. “We have made tremendous progress, and I think we’re going to wind up with a trade agreement between the US and India,” said Rubio, adding that it would be enduring and beneficial to both sides.

Jaishankar said the two sides today spoke about the value of concluding at an early date the final text of the interim agreement regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade. “This will be an important step towards a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement, which was envisaged during Prime Minister Modi’s visit in February 2025,” said Jaishankar.

To another question, Rubio said there was 20-billion dollars of Indian investment in the US economy, and that “number continues to grow”.

On trade, Rubio clarified that it was not about India; it was about the US. “President (Donald Trump) did not say let’s figure out a way to create friction with India over trade,” he said.

“The President said that we have a trade situation involving the US economy that doesn’t work moving forward. There’s a huge imbalance that’s built up, and it needs to be addressed. He pursued it from a global perspective,” Rubio said.

He said the US needed to rebalance trade globally and not just India. “We do a lot of trade with India, and so, obviously, there’s a big difference in rebalancing trade with a country of this size and magnitude,” Rubio said.

The US Secretary of State reminded how India had joined Pax Silica that worked at ensuring supply chain for making semiconductors. The two sides have had a ministerial on critical minerals.