The United States has at last admitted Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a person who cannot be bended. This revelation comes in the wake of US President Donald Trump's recent assertion that Modi is a good leader, a good friend, but "he is not that happy with me because they are paying a lot of tariffs."
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has revealed in a podcast interview that the trade deal with India did not happen because Prime Minister Modi did not call President Trump, who was waiting for his call.
Lutnick said there was an expectation that the deal with India would be concluded before those with Indonesia or the Philippines, which were sealed in July 2025, but the effort was derailed because India was "uncomfortable" about setting up a call between Modi and Trump.
The US Commerce Secretary said, India was given a clear and time=bound window - "three Fridays" - to finalise the negotiations, but the Indian government was not comfortable with this and Modi did not eventually make the call.
The question is, why Trump wanted Modi to make the phone call before the deal was to be sealed and why Modi did not ring him up?
Trump is now applying other tools to put pressure on India, by seizing Russian-flagged oil tankers and signing a bill to impose tariff up to 500 per cent on countries like India and China which buy Russian oil. Is it part of a strategy to bend countries like India and Australia to agree to a deal with the US?
According to Lutnick, the US was ready to impose a low tariff as per the draft trade deal with India, but the final condition was that Prime Minister Modi should make a phone call to Trump.
The same phone call condition was put before UK and the British PM Keir Starmer rang up Trump immediately and their deal was sealed.
Trump's hurt ego was evident from the remarks that he made while addressing Republican party MPs two days ago. Trump had said that he knew Modi was not happy with him nowadays. Trump did not reveal the reason, but it was his Commerce Secretary who let the cat out of the bag.
On Friday, India's External Affairs ministry gave a diplomatic response to Lutnick's revelation. Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, "the characterisation of these discussions in the reported remarks is not accurate."
He said, "We remain interested in a mutually beneficial trade deal between two complementary economies and look forward to concluding it. Incidentally, Prime Minister Modi and President Trump have also spoken on the phone on eight occasions during 2025, covering different aspects of our wide-ranging partnership."
On the US bill to impose tariff up to 500 per cent on countries buying Russian oil, the spokesperson said, it is for the US to decide which law to enact and how much tariff it wants to levy, but India takes decisions based on its energy requirements and world market. It does not make any difference to us what other countries are doing, he said.
The US Commerce Secretary remarks clearly establish that Modi did not bend under pressure from Trump. India did not succumb to US pressure.
For Modi, India's self-respect is supreme and more important than a trade deal. India is the world's fourth largest economy today. Nobody can bend Modi, nor can anybody stop India from marching towards progress.
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