Trump rails against India's tariffs, ready for talks

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered to talk about easing tariffs, buying more US oil, gas and combat aircraft, and concessions amid a standoff on trade.

The offer emerged from the two leaders' talks at the White House, just hours after Trump railed against the climate for US businesses in India.

"Prime Minister Modi recently announced the reductions to India's unfair, very strong tariffs that limit us access to the Indian market, very strongly," Trump said. "And really, it's a big problem, I must say."

Some of the new goals were presented at the meeting: India wants to increase by "billions of dollars" its purchases of US defense equipment, including fighter jets, and may make Washington the "number one supplier" of oil and gas, Trump said at a news conference. And India wants to double trade with Washington by 2030, Modi said.

"We're also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters," said Trump.

The F-35 is the most expensive US defense program and Lockheed Martin's biggest revenue generator. The F-35 Lightning II was on display at an air show in India this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun reiterated China's position that state-to-state cooperation should not target any third party and stressed that the Asia-Pacific region is not a wrestling ground for geopolitical competition.

"China consistently advocates that cooperation between countries should not target any third party or even harm their interests. It should be conducive to promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity," Guo told reporters at a regular news briefing on Friday.

Guo said that the acts of ganging up to form exclusive groupings in the Asia-Pacific region and engaging in group politics and bloc confrontation will not bring security and are not conducive to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific and the world as a whole.

On trade, the White House did not respond to a request for comment on any deal and the agreements announced by the leaders do not yet resolve trade issues.

Although Trump had a warm relationship with Modi in his first term, he again said on Thursday that India's tariffs were "very high" and promised to match them, even after his earlier levies on steel and aluminum hit metal-producing India particularly hard.

However, the two leaders agreed to trade talks to resolve those differences and expressed optimism they could wrap up those talks soon.

During Modi's visit, he also met with tech billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday at Blair House — opposite the White House — where the prime minister is staying. Musk is a key Trump ally and his Starlink company's bid to enter the South Asian market could have come up in the discussions.

Mo Jingxi in Beijing contributed to this story.

Agencies Via Xinhua