No change in trade deal with India; it is on: Trump after SC verdict

New York/Washington, Feb 21 (PTI): In the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision on tariffs, President Donald Trump said there is no change in the trade deal with India and emphasised that the “India deal is on”. “I think my relationship with India is fantastic and we’re doing trade with India. India pulled out of Russia. India was getting its oil from Russia. And they pulled way back at my request, because we want to settle that horrible war where 25,000 people are dying every month,” Trump said at a news conference Friday in the White House hours after the US Supreme Court verdict striking down his sweeping tariffs.

He said his relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi “is, I would say, great.” Trump then went on to repeat the claim that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan last summer using tariffs.

“I also stopped the war between India and Pakistan. As you know, there were 10 planes were shot down. That war was going and probably going nuclear. And just yesterday, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved 35 million lives by getting them to stop,” Trump said.

“And I did it largely with tariffs. I said, ‘Look, you’re going to fight, that’s fine, but you’re not going to do business with the United States, and you’re going to pay a 200 per cent tariff, each country’. And they called up and they said, ‘we have made peace’,” Trump said.

Earlier this month, as the US and India announced they reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on trade, Trump issued an Executive Order removing the 25 per cent punitive tariffs imposed on India for its purchases of Russian oil, with the US President noting the “commitment” by New Delhi to stop directly or indirectly importing energy from Moscow and purchase American energy products.

Under the trade deal, Washington will charge a reduced reciprocal tariff on New Delhi, lowering it from 25 per cent to 18 per cent.

When asked about the deal with India, Trump said “nothing changes”.

“Nothing changes. They’ll be paying tariffs, and we will not be paying tariffs. So deal with India is they pay tariffs. This is a reversal for what it used to be, as you know, India and I think Prime Minister Modi is a great gentleman, a great man, actually, but he was much smarter than the people that he was against in terms of the United States, he was ripping us off. So we made a deal with India. It’s a fair deal now, and we are not paying tariffs to them, and they are paying tariffs. We did a little flip,” Trump said.

“The India deal is on…all the deals are on, we’re just going to do it” in a different way.

Earlier, Trump said he used tariffs to end the war between India and Pakistan, as he lashed out at the Supreme Court for its decision to strike down his sweeping tariffs imposed on countries around the world.

“Tariffs have likewise been used to end five of the eight wars that I settled. I settled eight wars, whether you like it or not, including India, Pakistan, big ones, nuclear, could have been nuclear,” Trump said during a news conference Friday just hours after the Supreme Court verdict.

“Prime Minister of Pakistan said yesterday at the great meeting that we had the peace board. He said yesterday that President Trump could have saved 35 million lives by getting us to stop fighting. They were getting ready to do some bad things. But they’ve given us great national security, these tariffs have,” he said. PTI YAS MNK MNK MNK

(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)