'Modi, Trump spoke 8 times in 2025': MEA on Howard Lutnick's claim on India-US trade deal

The ministry of external affairs said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to US President Donald Trump eight times in 2025 amid strained New Delhi-Washington ties over the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and tariff issues.

While the remarks were not directly in response to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s claims that US-India FTA negotiations were stalled because “PM Modi didn't call President Trump”, they appeared to be made in light of them.

“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 said in a media briefing.

The MEA spokesperson said that Modi and Trump have spoken over the phone as many as eight times in 2025, covering “different aspects of our wide-ranging partnership”.

"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,” Jaiswal clarified.

Jaiswal also stated that PM and Trump “have a friendly relationship” and have always addressed each other with mutual respect as per diplomatic norms.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed that the India-US trade deal didn't happen because Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't call US President Donald Trump.

Speaking with venture capitalist and entrepreneur Chamath Palihapitiya on his ‘All In’ podcast on Thursday, Lutnick said he asked for PM Modi to call Trump to close the deal. However, he said India was “uncomfortable” doing it, “so Modi didn't call”.

Lutnick said the US had trade deals with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, but he assumed the trade deal with India would be done before them.

“We did Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and we announced a whole bunch of deals. So we did these 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,” Lutnick said.

"So now the problem is the deals came out at a higher rate. And then India calls back and says, ‘Oh, okay, we are ready’. I said, Ready for what?”