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NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON: After five rounds of trade negotiations, Indian officials were so confident of securing a favorable deal with the United States that they even signalled to the media that tariffs could be capped at 15 percent.

Indian officials expected US President Donald Trump to announce the deal himself weeks before the August 1 deadline.

The announcement never came.

New Delhi is now left with the surprise imposition of a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods from Friday, along with unspecified penalties over oil imports from Russia, while Trump has closed larger deals with Japan and the EU, and even offered better terms to arch-rival Pakistan.

Interviews with four Indian government officials and two US government officials revealed previously undisclosed details of the proposed deal and an exclusive account of how negotiations collapsed despite technical agreements on most issues.

The officials on both sides said a mix of political misjudgment, missed signals and bitterness broke down the deal between the world’s biggest and fifth-largest economies, whose bilateral trade is worth over $190 billion.

The White House, the US Trade Representative office, and India’s Prime Minister’s Office, along with the External Affairs and Commerce ministries, did not respond to emailed requests for comment. India believed that after visits by Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal to Washington and US Vice President J.D. Vance to Delhi, it had made a series of deal-clinching concessions.

New Delhi was offering zero tariffs on industrial goods that formed about 40 percent of US exports to India, two Indian government officials told Reuters.

Despite domestic pressure, India would also gradually lower tariffs on US cars and alcohol with quotas and accede to Washington’s main demand of higher energy and defense imports from the US, the officials said.

“Most differences were resolved after the fifth round in Washington, raising hopes of a breakthrough,” one of the officials said, adding negotiators believed the US would accommodate India’s reluctance on duty-free farm imports and dairy products from the US It was a miscalculation. Trump saw the issue differently and wanted more concessions.

“A lot of progress was made on many fronts in India talks, but there was never a deal that we felt good about,” said one White House official.

“We never got to what amounted to a full deal — a deal that we were looking for.”

OVER-CONFIDENCE AND MISCALCULATION

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Washington in February, agreed to target a deal by fall 2025, and more than double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.

To bridge the $47 billion goods trade gap, India pledged to buy up to $25 billion in US energy and boost defense imports. But officials now admit India grew overconfident after Trump talked up a “big” imminent deal, taking it as a signal that a favorable agreement was in hand. New Delhi then hardened its stance, especially on agriculture and dairy, two highly sensitive areas for the Indian government.

“We are one of the fastest growing economies, and the US can’t ignore a market of 1.4 billion,” one Indian official involved in the negotiations said in mid-July.

Negotiators even pushed for relief from the 10 percent average US tariff announced in April, plus a rollback of steel, aluminum and auto duties.

Later, India scaled back expectations after the US signed trade deals with key partners, including Japan and the European Union, hoping it could secure a similar 15 percent tariff rate with fewer concessions.

That was unacceptable to the White House. “Trump wanted a headline-grabbing announcement with broader market access, investments, and large purchases,” said a Washington-based source familiar with the talks.

An Indian official acknowledged New Delhi wasn’t ready to match what others offered.

South Korea, for example, struck a deal just before Trump’s August 1 deadline, securing a 15 percent rate instead of 25 percent by offering $350 billion in investments, higher energy imports, and concessions on rice and beef.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

“At one point, both sides were very close to signing the deal,” said Mark Linscott, a former US Trade Representative who now works for a lobby group that is close to the discussions between the two nations.

“The missing component was a direct line of communication between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi.”

A White House official strongly disputed this, noting other deals had been resolved without such intervention.

An Indian government official involved in the talks said Modi could not have called, fearing a one-sided conversation with Trump that could put him on the spot. However, the other three Indian officials said Trump’s repeated remarks about mediating the India-Pakistan conflict further strained negotiations and contributed to Modi not making a final call. “Trump’s remarks on Pakistan didn’t go down well,” one of them said. “Ideally,

India should have acknowledged the US role while making it clear the final call was ours.” A senior Indian government official blamed the collapse on poor judgment, saying top Indian advisers mishandled the process.

“We lacked the diplomatic support needed after the US struck better deals with Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan and the EU,” the official said.

“We’re now in a crisis that could have been avoided.”

Trump said on Tuesday he would increase the tariff on imports from India from the current rate of 25 percent “very substantially” over the next 24 hours and alleged that New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil were “fueling the war” in Ukraine.

WAY FORWARD

Talks are ongoing, with a US delegation expected in Delhi later this month and Indian government officials still believe the deal can be salvaged from here.

“It’s still possible,” one White House official said.

The Indian government is re-examining areas within the farm and dairy sectors where concessions can be made, the fourth official said. On Russian oil, India could reduce some purchases in favor of US supplies if pricing is matched.

“It likely will require direct communication between the prime minister and the president,” said Linscott.

“Pick up the phone. Right now, we are in a lose-lose. But there is real potential for a win-win trade deal.”

HIROSHIMA: Hiroshima on Wednesday marked the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the western Japanese city, with many aging survivors expressing frustration about the growing support of global leaders for nuclear weapons as a deterrence.
With the number of survivors rapidly declining and their average age now exceeding 86, the anniversary is considered the last milestone event for many of them.
“There will be nobody left to pass on this sad and painful experience in 10 years or 20 years,” Minoru Suzuto, a 94-year-old survivor, said after he kneeled down to pray at the cenotaph. “That’s why I want to share (my story) as much as I can.”
The bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroyed the city and killed 140,000 people. A second bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II and Japan’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui warned against a growing acceptance of military buildups and of using nuclear weapons for national security amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Mideast, with the United States and Russia possessing most of the world’s nuclear warheads.
“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said. “They threaten to topple the peacebuilding frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct.”
He urged younger generations to recognize that such “misguided policies” could cause “utterly inhumane” consequences for their future.
“We don’t have much time left, while we face a greater nuclear threat than ever,” said Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots organization of survivors that won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for its pursuit of nuclear abolishment.
“Our biggest challenge now is to change, even just a little, nuclear weapons states that give us the cold shoulder,” the organization said in its statement.
About 55,000 people, including representatives from a record 120 countries and regions, including Russia and Belarus, were expected to attend the ceremony. A minute of silence was held while a peace bell rang out at 8:15 a.m., the time when a US B-29 dropped the bomb on the city.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the city’s mayor and other officials laid flowers at the cenotaph. Dozens of white doves, a symbol of peace, were released after the mayor’s speech.
Hours before the official ceremony, as the sun rose over Hiroshima, survivors and their families started paying tribute to the victims at the peace memorial park.
Kazuo Miyoshi, a 74-year-old retiree, came to honor his grandfather and two cousins who died in the bombing and prayed that the “mistake” will never be repeated.
“We do not need nuclear weapons,” Miyoshi said.
“There is hope,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement read by Izumi Nakamitsu, UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, noting Nihon Hidankyo’s Nobel Peace Prize and countries’ re-commitment to a nuclear free world in “the Pact for the Future” adopted last year.
Guterres stressed the importance to carry forward the survivors’ testimony and message of peace and added: “Remembering the past is about protecting and building peace today and in the future.”
Wednesday’s anniversary comes at a time when possession of nuclear weapons for deterrence is increasingly supported by the international community, including Japan.
Some survivors said they were disappointed by President Donald Trump’s recent remark justifying Washington’s attack on Iran in June by comparing it to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the mild response from the Japanese government.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Kosei Mito, a 79-year-old former high school teacher who was exposed to radiation while he was still in his mother’s womb. “I don’t think we can get rid of nuclear weapons as long as it was justified by the assailant.”
In the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said Tuesday that he was praying that the 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima “will serve as a call to the international community to renew its commitment to pursuing peace for our own human family.”
Japan’s government has rejected the survivors’ request to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or attend its meetings as observers because it is under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella.
Matsui, the city’s mayor, in his speech Wednesday, urged Japan’s government to sign and ratify the nuclear weapons ban treaty, a request also made by several groups of survivors in their meeting with Ishiba after the ceremony.
Ishiba, in a speech, reiterated his government’s pledge to work toward a world without nuclear weapons, but did not mention the treaty and again indicated his government’s support for nuclear weapons possession for deterrence.
At a news conference later Wednesday, Ishiba justified Japan’s reliance on US nuclear deterrence, saying Japan, which follows a non-nuclear principle, is surrounded by neighbors that possess nuclear weapons. The stance, he said, does not contradict Japan’s pursuit of a nuclear-free world.
Past prime ministers have stressed Japan’s status as the world’s only country to have suffered nuclear attacks and have said Japan is determined to pursue peace, but survivors say it’s a hollow promise.
The Japanese government has only paid compensation to war veterans and their families, even though survivors have sought redress for civilian victims. They have also sought acknowledgment by the US government of its responsibility for the civilian deaths.