TOI Correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered the clearest sign that a trade deal with India is now imminent, telling an Asia-Pacific meeting in South Korea that he has “great respect and love” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while recycling his increasingly fictionalized version of how he used trade bait to stop an India-Pakistan war. Shorn of his repetitive hyperbole that grows more elaborate with each recitation, Trump signalled that a provisional agreement trade delegations from both sides are reported to have reached has his approval. The deal, which is expected to bring down US tariff on Indian exports from a punitive 50 percent to 15 percent, is said to include, among other elements, New Delhi whittling down purchases of Russian oil while stepping up US energy imports. India will also commit to buying US corn for its growing bio-fuel program blending ethanol with petrol, besides unspecified purchase of military hardware. Trump did not say when the trade deal would be signed even as informed sources said it would be a “framework agreement” to begin with. The US President also appeared keen to be fortified by trade agreements with Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, ahead of his meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping on Thursday, ostensibly to strengthen his negotiating position.The US President’s affirmation of a trade deal with New Delhi was laced with what many analysts see as his characteristically fabulist recounting of how he stopped an India-Pakistan war by threatening tariffs of 250 percent, a figure neither he nor his minions have ever mentioned before. “I said I was going to put 250% tariffs on each country, which means that you’ll never do business… there’s nothing you can sell for 250%…. and they understood that and within 48 hours we had no war and no people killed. It makes me feel so good. We saved millions and millions of lives,” Trump said. The US President yarn, which now elicits eyerolls and comedic ridicule at home, included gratuitous references to PM Modi, whom he called “the nicest-looking guy” and a father-figure. “He’s a killer. He’s tough as hell…Whoa, this is the same man that I know?” Trump said, claiming that he had phoned leaders of both India and Pakistan to convey the message during the conflict that he’d impose stiff tariffs and how they had first insisted they would keep on fighting before backing down. Indian sources, dismissing the claims as “arrant nonsense,” have said there was no phone call between the two during the brief four-day war and the truce came as a result of Pakistan’s DGMO calling his Indian counterpart to request a ceasefire. Bizarrely, Trump also said “I’m reading that seven planes were shot down,” without elaborating on where he read such reports. The US President is often prone to say generalisms like “some people say” and ” I heard, I read” etc to convey his point of view.
