Lutnick, speaking in the All-In Podcast, hosted by four Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, said that they had negotiated with other countries earlier, assuming that the deal with India will happen earlier.
“Lets be clear, its his (Trump’s) deal. He is the closer. He does it. Its all set up, you got to have Modi, call the President. They were uncomfortable doing it. So, Modi didn’t call. That Friday left, in the next week we did Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, we announced a whole bunch of deals. Because we negotiated with them and assumed that India is going to be done before them and negotiated with them at a higher rate. So now the problem is, that the deals came out at a higher rate and then India claws back and says oh okay, we are ready. I said ready for what?!” the US Commerce Secretary said.
“You know, it was like 3 weeks later. I go, “Are are you ready for the train that left the station 3 weeks ago?” Lutnick added.
India’s exports to the US currently attract a 50% tariff rate.
To be updated with more.
