The ink is barely dry on the European Union and India’s historic trade deal but all eyes are now on how President Donald Trump will react to the free trade agreement that’s widely seen as a strategic hedge against the U.S.′ volatile trade policies and tariff threats.
The deal, which was confirmed earlier Tuesday, has taken almost two decades to agree and will see the trading behemoths gradually cut tariffs to zero on the majority of each other’s imports, except on some key products and sectors.
Trump is yet to react publicly to the EU-India deal, which was announced in the early hours of Tuesday morning European time, but he and the White House are unlikely to be happy with the deal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already criticized the EU for forging ahead with a trade agreement with India.
“The U.S. has made much bigger sacrifices than Europeans have. We have put 25% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? The Europeans signed a trade deal with India,” Bessent told ABC News on Sunday.
India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, told CNBC on Tuesday that he expected the U.S.-India relationship to remain positive and for a trade deal to be completed soon.
“The relationship structure [between the U.S. and India] is very strong. I would try and look at the positive side, I’m not a soothsayer, I don’t know when trade deals will get signed, how long it takes … but everybody needs to chill a bit.” Hardeep Singh Puri told Amitoj Singh.
India supported the multilateral trading system, he said, and this was evident in the latest deal with the EU: “If you were to make the statement that the multilateral trading system, the global economy, is undergoing challenges, then I don’t think anyone would want to challenge that assessment. On the Indian side, there are several sectors which are looking to an enhanced European market,” he said.