'India doing extraordinary things...': US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick on ongoing trade talks

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump will bring growth back to the US.

US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick was all praises for India and suggested that the two countries were inching closer to a trade pact before the 90-day tariff pause by his country runs out in early July.

"India is at the table really doing extraordinary things that no one has ever done," Lutnick said in response to a question during a Fox Business broadcast.

The Trump administration was moving fast to close trade deals and bring growth back to the US by reshoring of auto, pharma and semiconductor manufacturing, he said.

India and the US are negotiating a deal that would help avoid the so-called reciprocal tariffs slapped by US President Donald Trump to re-set America's trade with other countries. A Moneycontrol report said India sought relief from the US on sectoral tariffs such as steel but hasn't got a positive response, so far.

India hopes to conclude at least the first tranche of the proposed deal at the earliest, after both the countries signed terms of reference in April.

Trump is optimistic, saying some of the trade deals could be concluded as early as this week. “We’re negotiating with many countries, but at the end of this, I’ll set my own deals — because I set the deal, they don’t set the deal,” Trump recently said aboard Air Force One on early on May 5. “You keep asking the same question: ‘When will you agree?’ It’s up to me, it’s not up to them.”

Trump slapped reciprocal tariffs on April 2, calling it a "Liberation Day" for America in a bid to bring down US massive trade deficit. Made in India goods face a duty of 26 percent. Initial levy on China were 34 percent but was later hiked to 145 percent as the world's two biggest economies got into tit-for-tat tariff war.

Trump paused reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, providing a window to nations to come to the negotiating table. China was excluded from the list of countries that got the 90-day breather.  A baseline tariff of 10 percent, which came into effect on April 5, is in place.