New Delhi: On Monday (February 2), US President Donald Trump wrote a jubilant post on his Truth Social account, announcing that a trade deal between India and the US has been agreed upon in a phone call between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After his post, Indian government officials including cabinet minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal confirmed that a deal had been reached.

Modi’s statement on X did not even mention the word “deal” – but he thanked the US president for reducing the tariff on Indian goods from 50% to 18%. He provided absolutely no additional details, nor did he mention what India had promised the US in return.

Since neither country has issued a formal press communique or detailed statement on the matter, the information the public has been able to glean about this reported deal is based solely on social media posts. Unsurprisingly, that’s left a lot of questions unanswered.

Here’s what we know about the deal so far, and what we don’t.

Trump has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “agreed to stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela”. This was one of the very public sticking points between the countries; the US had imposed a 25% “penalty” tariff on Indian goods because of India’s purchase of Russian oil. India had maintained, however, that it bought Russian oil because of market conditions and the interests of Indian consumers. The Ministry of External Affairs had called the US’s penalty “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.

Does the deal include provisions that would make the move away from........

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