President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States and India are “pretty close” to a trade deal, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio visits India to repair strained ties over tariffs and visas. The India US trade deal has been under discussion for more than a year, according to DW.
According to DW, which cited Bloomberg, Trump spoke to reporters at the Oval Office on Tuesday, October 20, 2026. He said: “They want to make a deal. We’re going to make a deal. Pretty close, yeah.” The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, separately reported that Trump said: “It’s going to be a much different kind of deal than we’ve done.”
Rubio is on a two-day visit to India, his second official trip to the country this year. DW reported that he told The Indian Express that “we are weeks, not months, away from… finalising it” and that “99% of the work is done.”
Rubio also said on Tuesday that US tariffs are not meant to “punish India” and that visa restrictions are “not targeted” at the country, according to DW. In his Indian Express interview, he said the US relationship with any country, “not just with Pakistan,” will “never come at the expense of India.”
India and the US announced the finalisation of a framework for the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement in February, according to The Hindu. Changes in US tariffs led to further negotiations. Earlier this month, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal met US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Milwaukee and Washington to discuss the deal, The Hindu reported.
DW says the visit is widely seen as an attempt by Washington to repair relations amid tensions over visa restrictions and tariff threats.
Rubio’s two-day visit is continuing, and negotiations are ongoing. Rubio said the remaining work must reach 100% before the deal is finalised, DW reported.
The sources do not include a response from the Indian government or its Commerce Ministry to the remarks, and they give no terms of the deal or confirmed signing date beyond Rubio’s “weeks, not months” estimate. The key trade claims rest mainly on DW, a live-blog roundup that cites Bloomberg and The Indian Express, and on a short Hindu report; no second independent outlet confirms them. Trump’s quotes have not been checked against a full transcript or video, and the full Indian Express interview was not available, so Rubio’s remarks are known only through DW’s excerpts. The Hindu report also gives no detail on what would make the deal “much different.”
Sources
This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.