Indian rupee opens flat on support from Trump’s trade optimism

Indian rupee

Indian rupee opened flat on November 11 drawing support from the comments from U.S. President Donald Trump on a potential trade deal.

The local currency opened at 88.6950 against the US dollar, as compared to 88.6987 against the greenback at previous close.

Amid the ongoing India-US trade deal negotiations, President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that they are going to "bring down the tariffs" imposed on New Delhi.

When asked about how close a trade deal with India is and whether he is willing to consider lowering the current tariff rate, Trump said, "Well, right now, the tariffs are very high on India because of the Russian oil, and they've stopped doing the Russian oil. It's been reduced very substantially. Yeah, we're going to be bringing the tariffs down...At some point, we're going to be bringing them down..."

Trump, earlier this year, slapped additional tariffs on India’s exports to the US in part to pressure New Delhi to stop buying Russian oil, raising the rates on many Indian goods to 50%.

But in recent weeks, Trump has claimed that PM Modi has pledged to wind down purchases of crude from Russia and expressed optimism about trade talks. “They’ve stopped doing the Russian oil – it’s been reduced very substantially,” the president said on November 10.