US President Donald Trump said that trade talks with India were “coming along great” and expressed confidence in signing a deal.  Unlike his aides, however, the president did not put an immediacy to the talks. “India`s coming along great,” he told reporters at an airport, heading to a rally in Michigan state to mark his achievements in the first 100 days of his second term. “I think we`ll have a deal with India... they want to make a deal.”

Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary who has been leading the negotiations with trading partner countries in Asia, has flagged the likelihood of a deal with India being the first to be signed in the aftermath of the global trade turmoil triggered by President Trump’s multiple rounds of escalation of tariff, including a reciprocal tariff on nearly all of America’s trading partner countries.