India-US ties ‘very substantive, consequential’, says Piyush Goyal amid trade deal uncertainty

India’s ties with the US are “very good,” Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said, even as trade tensions simmer and after President Donald Trump irritated New Delhi by claiming he helped mediate an end to armed clashes with Pakistan.

Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday that India’s ties with the US are ‘very good,’ even as trade tensions simmer ever since President Donald Trump claimed he helped mediate an end to armed clashes with Pakistan last year.

“I don’t see any problem as we speak,” Goyal said Wednesday at the New Economy Forum in New Delhi, responding to a question on whether India’s relationship with the US would improve under a different administration.

The forum is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

“The relationship with the US that India enjoys is very substantive, is very consequential for the world, being two large democracies,” the minister was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

The remarks come as India and the US have struggled to hammer out a trade deal during prolonged negotiations and after relations were soured by Trump’s punitive tariffs. Ties were further dented by the president’s comments on India’s brief armed conflict with Pakistan last year that breached diplomatic norms.

The latest flashpoint with Washington comes after the suspension of some of India’s biggest IT services businesses as well as Microsoft Corp. and Adobe Inc. from a longstanding immigration initiative as part of a crackdown on alleged abuse of the H-1B worker visa system.

Vice President JD Vance urged US firms to hire more US workers and to “stop importing an indentured servant to do a job that an American worker would happily do.”

India’s government branded the comments “deeply offensive.” An indentured servant is associated in India with a colonial-era system in which workers were forced into labor on plantations and farms overseas under exploitative conditions.

India-US proposed trade deal

India and the US have been in talks since early 2025 on the proposed trade pact to address tariff friction, eliminate non-tariff barriers, and boost bilateral market access.

India is seeking better tariffs than its competitors for its goods in the US market.

Earlier this month, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the United States and India were working to finalise a bilateral trade deal, but an agreement was not imminent. Greer said the two sides identified the issues that remained unresolved and were working towards an agreement.

Goyal attempted to allay concerns that relations were again on a downward trajectory.

“The US and India have a very, very consequential relationship, and it’s only going to get better, irrespective of changes in political thinking, whether in India or in the US,” he said. “The United States and India continue to have a very close relationship, and we continue to engage with them on so many tracks,” including in defense, working toward ensuring open supply chains on technology, on goods, on services.

Goyal on India-China ties

Goyal said India is aiming to revive its relationship with China, while adding that “the last word has not yet been scripted on this journey.”

Ties are beginning to thaw after a deadly India-China border clash in 2020 prompted New Delhi to impose a broad range of restrictions on Chinese companies.

“We are open to all countries around the world as long as we get a fair deal, as long as we are ensured continuity in the engagement, and as long as the geopolitical situation does not deteriorate,” Goyal said.

What Jaishankar said about trade deal

On Tuesday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that India and the United States are continuing to engage to iron out differences on the proposed trade deal, and negotiations are heading towards a ‘landing point.’ The minister noted that the core fundamentals of the bilateral strategic partnership remain unchanged.

The external affairs minister's comments on the trade negotiations came over a week after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the talks on the trade deal have reached a "plateau".

"I think we are waiting on a few things. I wouldn't be comfortable spilling the beans in public," Jaishankar said on Tuesday evening when asked about the status of the negotiations between the two sides.

“I don’t see any problem as we speak,” Piyush Goyal said of India-US relations.

"My sense is that this is an issue which is heading towards a landing point," Jaishankar said.