New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump decided at their bilateral meeting at Osaka, Japan, on Friday that the trade ministers of both countries would meet and sort out the trade disputes that have arisen between the two countries.
Interestingly, Mr Trump had said ahead of the meeting that there would be some “very good things (in due course) to announce a very big trade deal, some very big things with India in terms of trade and manufacturing”.
A day after Mr Trump put out an aggressive tweet referring to India enhancing tariffs on 29 US goods recently and saying it was “unacceptable and must be withdrawn”, Mr Modi made it clear to the US President at the bilateral meeting — aimed at “clearing the air” between the two sides — that India had indeed “taken some action” but pointed out that it was after the US had ended India’s $5.6 billion trade concessions under the key Generalised System of Preference (GSP) programme.
Mr Modi said that was something that “had already happened” and that “now we should look forward and see how we should resolve some of these issues”.
Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said, “There was a discussion on trade. Both sides had their concerns. Both sides spoke about interests of the other side.
What was agreed was that the trade ministers of both countries would meet at an early date and would try and sort out these issues.” The meeting was Mr Modi’s first with Mr Trump after the BJP’s win in the parliamentary polls.
