President Donald Trump’s top trade advisor Peter Navarro said Wednesday that the White House is moving in “Trump time” as they negotiate a tariff deal with India, “which is to say, as fast as possible.”
“In Indian democracy, it’s got to go through the prime minister and the parliament, we can’t just do that, but we’re moving in Trump time, which is to say as fast as possible,” Navarro told CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Street.’
Navarro said that the trade deal with India is “close.”
A day earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Washington was closing in on a trade deal with New Delhi.
The comments come as investors and consumers grow increasingly skeptical that Trump can execute a series of bilateral trade agreements, which he promised to do when he unveiled his aggressive tariff regime earlier this month.
Businesses had hoped the White House could strike deals with America’s biggest trading partners before Trump’s massive tariffs cut American importers and exporters off from global markets, and slashed U.S. economic growth.
U.S. gross domestic product fell 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, fueled by policy uncertainty around Trump’s trade wars.
On Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed that one trade deal had already been hammered out. But he would not say which country it was with.
“I have a deal done, done, done, done, but I need to wait for their prime minister and their parliament to give its approval, which I expect shortly,” Lutnick told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan.
The White House has not divulged any specifics of what a possible trade deal with India might look like.
But even Trump himself has hinted that a deal, or at least a memorandum of understanding-type framework, may be imminent.
Trump said Tuesday that tariff negotiations with India are “coming along great,” and he thinks “we’ll have a deal with India.”
Vice President JD Vance traveled to India last week, where he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two leaders “made some very good progress,” Bessent said on Tuesday.
Navarro, who said that he’s not an “active part of the negotiation at the table,” but is “very plugged in to what is being done,” said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is “working very closely” with Lutnick.
“The president is the master strategist, the commander in chief. I’m just here to serve and help him do what he wants to do in what might be the best way possible, both tactically and strategically,” Navarro said.