'Modi, Trump spoke 8 times last year': MEA counters US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claims over India-US trade talks

The Ministry of External Affairs, in its weekly media briefing on Friday (January 9), stated that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to US President Donald Trump eight times in 2025, amid strained New Delhi-Washington ties over the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and tariffs. While the statement was not directly in reply to the claims made by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that US-India FTA negotiations were not moving forward because 'PM Modi didn't call President Trump', it seemed in that context.

“We have seen the remarks. India and the US were committed to negotiating a bilateral trade agreement as far back as February 13, 2025. Since then, the two sides have held multiple rounds of negotiations to arrive at a balanced and mutually beneficial trade agreement. On several occasions, we have been close to a deal. The characterisation of these discussions in the reported remarks is not accurate," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told the reporters.

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The MEA spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said that Modi and Trump spoke over the phone eight times last year, discussing a wide range of topics. "We remain interested in a mutually beneficial trade deal between the two complementary economies. We look forward to concluding it. Incidentally, Prime Minister and President Trump have also spoken on the phone on 8 occasions during 2025, covering different aspects of our wide-ranging partnership,” MEA spokesperson further said.

Speaking on Chamath Palihapitiya’s All In podcast on Thursday (January 8), Lutnick said that he had suggested Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally reach out to Donald Trump to finalise the agreement. According to him, New Delhi was reluctant to take that step, and as a result, “so Modi didn't call”. He added that while the US has already finished trade agreements with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, he had expected India’s deal to be wrapped up even earlier. Explaining the sequencing, Lutnick said, “We did Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and we announced a whole bunch of deals. So we did this whole bunch of deals because we negotiated them and assumed India was going to be done before them. I have negotiated them at a higher rate.”