'No Deal With A Gun To Our Head’: Piyush Goyal Says India Won’t Bow To Trump’s Tariff Pressure

'No Deal With A Gun To Our Head’: India isn't going to get pushed into signing a trade deal with the United States, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said Friday, shedding some light on how India plans to proceed with ongoing trade negotiations.

Goyal said India is open to discussions but not to deadlines. “We are talking to the United States, of course, but we don’t do deals in a hurry, and we don’t do deals with deadlines or with a gun on our head,” he said while speaking at the Berlin Global Dialogue during an official visit.

When the moderator brought up the point that trade talks often come down to hard deadlines and tariffs nowadays, Goyal pushed back, saying that India's approach to these talks is all about looking at the big picture - its long-term goals - and not getting caught up in short-term pressures.

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“India looks long-term, India never takes decisions in a rush or on pressure of the moment. And we’ve accepted that if there’s a tariff on us, there is a tariff on us. We’re looking at how to overcome that — we’re looking at newer markets, we’re looking at a stronger demand impetus within the Indian economy. So we have a very resilient structure,” he added.

Coming at a time when India and the US are trying to revive a long-stalled trade deal that's designed to lower the high tariffs the US puts on Indian goods - at the moment those tariffs are 50% with an extra 25% slapped on imports of Russian crude that India hasn't stopped buying - Goyal's comments come as the US, EU and the UK are urging India to cut back on its low-cost Russian oil imports saying that the trade is helping to fund Moscow's Ukraine war efforts.

Trump’s repeated tune on Russian oil

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Piyush Goyal's remark also comes amid renewed claims by US President Donald Trump that India has agreed to drastically cut back its purchases of Russian oil.

“He’s not going to buy much oil from Russia. He wants to see that war end as much as I do. He wants to see the war between Russia and Ukraine to end,” Trump said earlier this week. “They’ve cut it way back, and they’re continuing to cut it way back.”

Trump also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a “great person,” and hinted that the two countries were “working on some deals.”

However, India has officially denied any recent communication between the two leaders. “I am not aware of any conversation yesterday between the two leaders,” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal at a weekly press briefing.

New Delhi has also maintained that its oil imports are guided by national interest and energy security.

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