U.S. President Trump hails trade deal with India as ‘historic’

U.S. President Donald Trump has hailed the trade deal with India as “historic” and said America will increase its coal exports dramatically to the country and to others with which it has trade agreements.

“And under our leadership, we’re becoming a massive energy exporter. In just the past few months, we’ve made historic trade deals with Japan, Korea, India and others to increase our coal exports dramatically,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday (February 11, 2025) during an event titled ‘Champion of Coal’.

“We’re now exporting coal all over the world, and the quality of our coal is supposed to be…the finest anywhere in the world,” he said.

Last week, the U.S. and India announced they have reached a framework for an interim agreement on trade, under which New Delhi will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all American industrial goods, a wide range of food and agricultural products, as well as purchase $500 billion of US products over the next five years.

A joint statement issued by the two countries on Friday (February 6) said they have reached a framework “regarding reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade.”

It said that India “intends to purchase $500 billion of U.S. energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products, and coking coal over the next five years.”

It added that the framework reaffirms the countries’ commitment to the broader U.S.-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) negotiations, launched by President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 13, 2025, which will include additional market access commitments and support more resilient supply chains.