Trump Announces Lopsided ‘Trade Deal’, Modi Silent on Indian Concessions; Ex-Army Chief's Memoir Triggers Row in Lok Sabha; Mystery and Mystique of ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’
Epstein Messages Reveal Anil Ambani Using Sex Offender’s Access to Pitch Modi’s Agenda With Trump
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February 2, 2026
Anirudh S.K.
After months of tension, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump spoke over the phone on Monday evening, after which Trump announced that Washington had ‘agreed to a trade deal as per Modi’s request’ wherein it would reduce its ‘reciprocal’ 25% tariff on Indian goods to 18% and New Delhi would “move forward” to cut tariffs and non-tariff barriers on American goods to “zero”. Modi, he also claimed, had acceded to the White House’s demand to stop buying Russian oil and purchase “much more from the United States” alongside committing to procure US energy, agricultural products and technology worth $500 billion. Modi in an X post over 40 minutes later thanked Trump “on behalf of the 1.4 billion people of India” for lowering tariffs from 25% to 18%, but did not mention a trade deal and remained silent on Trump’s other claims, including that India would stop buying Russian oil. On the other hand, India’s envoy in DC as well as Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Ashwini Vaishnaw have hailed the “trade deal”. A US embassy spokesperson confirmed that the ‘penalty’ 25% tariff on India for buying Russian crude will cease to exist.
The move may offer significant relief for Indian exporters as the India Cable goes to press, but the real story lies in what the government has conceded in the bargain.
(Some of these figures can be hard to fathom but The Hindu’s Sharad Raghavan notes that the $500 billion Trump says India has committed to spend on American products really is an enormous sum of money: at around Rs 45.5 lakh crore, it adds up to some 85% of the Union government’s entire budgeted expenditure for the upcoming financial year, he writes.) Even if this spend is spread over the next few years, it is a colossal sum.
Trump also claimed that Modi agreed to “potentially” buying Venezuelan oil, the export of which Washington has taken control of after capturing ex-President Nicolas Maduro and rendering him to New York. Late last week Modi had spoken over the phone with Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodriguez, during which both sides said they’d agreed to expand ties “in all areas” including energy. Before Trump’s first administration sanctioned Venezuelan oil, India was Caracas’s second-largest market for crude and New Delhi continues to have investments in Venezuelan oilfields.
Meanwhile, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar is in the US for three days till Wednesday to attend the Critical Minerals Ministerial convened by his American counterpart, Marco Rubio.
Modi’s decision to do what it takes to get a trade deal with Trump is slightly at variance with other countries. “From the Swiss Alps to coastal India, global leaders are now speaking openly about new geopolitical realities, largely abandoning their strategy of appeasing President Trump and, instead, considering what is possible without him”, reports The Washington Post.
Pandemonium erupted in the Lok Sabha on Monday after leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi attempted to cite former Army chief General M.M. Naravane’s yet-to-be-cleared memoir – as quoted in Sushant Singh’s comprehensive article in The Caravan – as saying that Modi refused to give clear orders to the general in the face of Chinese advances in eastern Ladakh in August 2020.
Saying he was responding to BJP MP Tejasvi Surya’s remarks on patriotism, Gandhi tried to read from the piece but was met with protests from defence minister Rajnath Singh, home minister Amit Shah and parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju, who asked if the book the LoP was referring to has been published. The PM was also present. Speaker Om Birla, who invoked House rules saying MPs cannot refer to articles not directly related to legislative proceedings, ultimately adjourned the Lok Sabha (which was adjourned again after meeting briefly in the afternoon). Gandhi said the treasury benches were ‘scared’ and thus did not allow him to speak. Sravasti Dasgupta reports.
In his Caravan article, Singh cites General Naravane as writing that when
