Trade deal with India soon: Vance

Washington: US Vice President JD Vance has delivered a blunt message on the India-US trade front, branding Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "tough negotiator" who has long leveraged America to his advantage.

In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Vance said "good negotiations" were now on with India on tariffs.

India is among the countries negotiating with the US to avoid the high import taxes, most of them on pause right now, announced by President Donald Trump.

"Modi, the Prime Minister, is a tough negotiator, but we're going to rebalance that relationship, and that's why the President's doing what he's doing," Vance said during the interview.

"Is India the first deal coming through?" Vance was asked in the interview. "I don't know if it'll be your first deal, I think it would be among the first deals for sure. Pretty soon the President look, we've got negotiations with Japan, with Korea, we've got negotiations going on with some folks in Europe, and obviously we've got a good negotiation going on in India," Vance replied.

US President Trump announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs on a number of countries, including India and China, on April 2. However, on April 9, he announced a 90-day suspension of these tariffs until July 9 this year, except for those on China and Hong Kong, as about 75 countries approached America for trade deals.