US prez plays the piper to woo corporate India
- Trump meets several Indian industrialists, including RIL’s Mukesh Ambani, Aditya Birla Group’s Kumar Mangalam Birla, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh
- US president says the stock market will jump if he is re-elected later this year
US President Donald Trump assured Indian industry leaders on Tuesday that he would ease regulations to attract more investments even as the two countries worked towards a broader trade deal.
Trump, who is on a two-day visit, met several Indian industrialists, including Reliance Industries Ltd’s Mukesh Ambani, Aditya Birla Group’s Kumar Mangalam Birla, Infosys’s chief executive officer Salil Parekh, Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Larsen and Toubro group chairman A.M. Naik, UPL chief Jai Shroff, Cipla’s Samina Vaziralli and Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra. The industrialists detailed their businesses and investments in the US.
Trump congratulated the industrialists for their investments in the US, which have led to the creation of jobs, and urged them to continue their alliance. He said that his administration was ready to help businesses grow and flourish in the US.
“We are going to cut a lot more regulations. Some have to go through the statutory process,” Trump said.
On his government’s pro-business approach, the US president said that the stock market will jump if he is re-elected later this year. However, “if I don’t win, you’re going to see a crash like you’ve never seen before”, he said.
Trump said his government planned to announce tax cuts soon for the middle class.
Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the two countries will soon commence negotiations for a “big” trade deal.
Meanwhile, at a meeting organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said the Indian and US governments have finalized the contours of a limited trade deal between the two countries and that there is a much larger trade deal in the offing.
“On the economic front, having almost closed the last contours of the limited trade package that we have finalised (with the US), and with the significant announcement of a much larger trade deal in the offing, I think we have moved to a new level of engagement where we will see a lot more two-way trade,” Goyal said.
Goyal did not elaborate on either the limited trade deal that is imminent, or on the larger partnership, but said that it would strengthen the cooperation between the two countries in defence and energy sectors. “We are going to see a lot more action between the two countries in strengthening our defence and energy cooperation,” Goyal said.
India on Tuesday also agreed to purchase more than $3 billion of advanced US military equipment comprising Apache and MH-60 Romeo helicopters.
The two countries have also been in talks on agricultural products and medical equipment as well, with the US also pressuring India to change its intellectual property laws, especially to allow patents for incremental innovation.
However, these talks have not seemed to fructify and there have been no details on these during Trump’s visit.
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First Published:26 Feb 2020, 12:06 AM IST
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