US President Donald Trump announced that the United States and India were working on a major trade agreement.
According to Reuters, Trump said he was not sure whether the agreement would be completed before the US presidential elections in November.
As Trump heads to India for his first official visit on Monday, negotiators have for weeks been seeking to hammer out a limited deal that would give the United States greater access to Indian dairy and poultry markets and reduce tariffs on other commodities.
But a breakthrough has not been announced yet, and a planned visit by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been canceled, highlighting the difficulties the two sides face in narrowing the gulf in the row ahead of Trump's visit.
"We can have a trade agreement with India, but I'm saving the grand deal for later," Trump told reporters on Tuesday outside the US presidential plane at the Andrews Joint Base in Maryland.
"We are conducting a very large trade deal with India," he added in a text of comments distributed by the White House. We will get it. I don't know if it will happen before the elections, but we will get a very big deal with India.
The United States is India's second largest trading partner after China, as their trade in goods and services reached a record $ 142.6 billion in 2018.
Last year, the United States recorded a $ 23.2 billion commodity trade deficit in 2019 with India, the ninth largest commodity trade partner with Washington.
